Abstract
Due to the emergence of COVID-19 becoming a significant pandemic worldwide, hospitals are expected to be capable and flexible in responding to the pandemic situation. Moreover, as frontline healthcare staff, emergency department (ED) staff have a high possibility of exposure risk to infectious airborne. The ED isolation room will possibly and effectively isolate the infected patient, therefore safekeeping frontline healthcare staff and controlling the outbreak. However, there is still limited knowledge available regarding isolation room facilities specifically for the emergency department. In this study, field measurement is conducted in an ED isolation room located in Taiwan. CFD simulation is employed to simulate and investigate the airflow and airborne contaminant distribution. Instead of high air-change rates (ACH) that purposes for dilution, this study proposes the arrangement of exhaust air grilles to improve the contaminant removal. The results reveal that the exhaust air grille placed behind the patient’s head is optimized to dilute airborne contaminants.
Highlights
A new emerging novel virus (SARS-CoV-2) that caused Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first detected in late 2019, with the possible risk to be transmissible through respiratory droplets and direct contact [1]
The exhaust air grille is located at lower levels of the rriigghhtt--ssiiddee wwaallll aatt lleennggtthh
The dimensionless velocity was evaluated at the monitored points in each selection of grids number based on the grid study by Tung et al [27]
Summary
A new emerging novel virus (SARS-CoV-2) that caused Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first detected in late 2019, with the possible risk to be transmissible through respiratory droplets and direct contact [1]. Based on CFD numerical analysis, several studies have been discussed related to airflow pattern and contaminant distribution in a negative-pressurized isolation room. A numerical study on the ventilation strategy to find the effective design in removing the contaminant has been conducted by Cheong and Phua [10]. They found that the exhaust grille should be located near the infectious source at a low level. Another study on ventilation arrangement has been studied by Kao and Yang [12] The results of their numerical study show that the parallel directional airflow pattern is the most effective to contain virus droplets. The exhaust air grille is located at lower levels of the Healthcare 2022, 10, 193
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