Numerical modeling of a sneeze, a cough and a continuum speech inside a hospital lift

Sergio A Chillón; Unai Fernandez-Gamiz; Ekaitz Zulueta; Ainara Ugarte-Anero; Oskar Urbina-Garcia

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13370

Numerical modeling of a sneeze, a cough and a continuum speech inside a hospital lift

Heliyon. 2023 Feb;9(2):e13370. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13370. Epub 2023 Feb 1.

Authors

Sergio A Chillón¹, Unai Fernandez-Gamiz¹, Ekaitz Zulueta², Ainara Ugarte-Anero¹, Oskar Urbina-Garcia¹

Affiliations

¹ Nuclear Engineering and Fluid Mechanics Department, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Nieves Cano 12, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 01006, Araba, Spain.
² Automatic and Simulation Department, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Nieves Cano 12, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 01006, Araba, Spain.

Abstract

The global COVID-19 and its variants put us on notice of the importance of studying the spread of respiratory diseases. The most common means of propagation was the emission of droplets due to different respiration activities. This study modeled by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques a high risk scenario like a hospital elevator. The cabin was provided with an extraction fan and a rack for air renewal. Inside, a sneeze, a cough and a continuum speech were simulated. Inside the lift, two occupants were introduced to observe the risk of propagation of emitted droplets and the impact in diseases spreading risk. The fan effectivity over the droplets ejection was analyzed, as well as environmental condition of a clinical setting. For this purpose the amount of droplets inside were counted during whole time of simulations. The effect of the fan was concluded as able to eject the 60% of small droplets, but also a high performance in spreading particles inside. Among the three cases, the riskiest scenario was the continuum speech due to the saturation of droplets in airborne.

Keywords: Airborne; CFD; COVID−19; Cough; Droplet; Fan; Hospital; Lift; Sneeze; Speech.