IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i21p11968-d667902.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Propagation of Mouth-Generated Aerosols in a Modularly Constructed Hospital Room

Author

Listed:
  • Mutaz Suleiman

    (Department of Civil Engineering, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON P7B 5E1, Canada)

  • Ahmed Elshaer

    (Department of Civil Engineering, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON P7B 5E1, Canada)

  • Muntasir Billah

    (Department of Civil Engineering, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON P7B 5E1, Canada)

  • Mohammed Bassuony

    (Department of Internal Medicine (COVID Unit), Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Thunder Bay, ON P7B 6V4, Canada)

Abstract

Modular construction methods have been widely used in the civil engineering industry due to ease of assembly, the convenience of design, and allowing for flexibility in placement while making the construction more sustainable. With the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, the capacity of the hospital is decreasing as more intensive care units (ICU) are allocated to COVID-19 cases. This limited capacity can be addressed by using modular construction to provide field hospitals. This paper adopts transient Lagrangian computational fluid dynamics simulations to investigate the importance of having an appropriate ventilation system in place to ensure sustainable infection control against airborne viruses and pathogens within a modular room. The performance of having a ventilation system using 10, 20, and 40 air changes per hour (ACH) was examined. In addition, different room configurations were also compared to provide useful guidelines for air conditioning units placement. It was determined that as the ACH rate increases while maintaining a direct flow field between the inlet and outlet, the rate of aerosol removal increases. Furthermore, the flowfield in which can be controlled by the placement of the inlet and outlet can impact the removal of aerosols, as it dictates how far the droplets travel before being removed from the enclosure.

Suggested Citation

  • Mutaz Suleiman & Ahmed Elshaer & Muntasir Billah & Mohammed Bassuony, 2021. "Propagation of Mouth-Generated Aerosols in a Modularly Constructed Hospital Room," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-14, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:21:p:11968-:d:667902
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11968/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11968/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bhattacharyya, Suvanjan & Dey, Kunal & Paul, Akshoy Ranjan & Biswas, Ranjib, 2020. "A novel CFD analysis to minimize the spread of COVID-19 virus in hospital isolation room," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Nina Szczepanik-Scislo & Jacek Schnotale, 2020. "An Air Terminal Device with a Changing Geometry to Improve Indoor Air Quality for VAV Ventilation Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-20, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mir Waqas Alam & Basma Souayeh, 2021. "Parametric CFD Thermal Performance Analysis of Full, Medium, Half and Short Length Dimple Solar Air Tube," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-30, June.
    2. Yat Huang Yau & Umair Ahmed Rajput & Altaf Hussain Rajpar & Natalia Lastovets, 2022. "Effects of Air Supply Terminal Devices on the Performance of Variable Refrigerant Flow Integrated Stratum Ventilation System: An Experimental Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-23, February.
    3. Ling-Yi Chang & Tong-Bou Chang, 2023. "Air Conditioning Operation Strategies for Comfort and Indoor Air Quality in Taiwan’s Elementary Schools," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-19, March.
    4. Nina Szczepanik-Scislo, 2022. "Improving Household Safety via a Dynamic Air Terminal Device in Order to Decrease Carbon Monoxide Migration from a Gas Furnace," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-11, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:21:p:11968-:d:667902. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.