Although the interpersonal distance represents an important parameter affecting the risk of infection due to respiratory viruses, the mechanism of exposure to exhaled droplets remains insufficiently characterized. In this study, an integrated risk assessment is presented for SARS-CoV-2 close proximity exposure between a speaking infectious subject and a susceptible subject. It is based on a three-dimensional transient numerical model for the description of exhaled droplet spread once emitted by a speaking person, coupled with a recently proposed SARS-CoV-2 emission approach. Particle image velocimetry measurements were conducted to validate the numerical model. The contribution of the large droplets to the risk is barely noticeable only for distances well below 0.6 m, whereas it drops to zero for greater distances where it depends only on airborne droplets. In particular, for short exposures (10 s) a minimum safety distance of 0.75 m should be maintained to lower the risk below 0.1%; for exposures of 1 and 15 min this distance increases to about 1.1 and 1.5 m, respectively. Based on the interpersonal distances across countries reported as a function of interacting individuals, cultural differences, and environmental and sociopsychological factors, the approach presented here revealed that, in addition to intimate and personal distances, particular attention must be paid to exposures longer than 1 min within social distances (of about 1 m).

The operating regimes of an orifice-type helium-filled soap bubbles (HFSB) generator are investigated for several combinations of air, helium and soap flow rates to establish the properties of the production process and the resulting tracers. The geometrical properties of the bubbles, the production regimes and the production rates are studied with high-speed shadowgraphy. The results show that the bubble volume is directly proportional to the ratio of helium and air volume flow rates, and that the bubble production rate varies approximately linearly with the air flow rate. The bubble slip velocity is measured along the stagnation streamline ahead of a cylinder via particle image velocimetry (PIV), yielding the particle time response from which the neutral buoyancy condition for HFSB is inferred. The HFSB tracing capability approaches that of an ideal tracer (i.e., minimum slip and shortest response time) when the volume flow rate of helium is approximately one thousandfold the soap flow rate. This study provides guidelines for operating HFSB generation systems, intended for PIV experiments.

The use of helium-filled soap bubbles (HFSB) as flow tracers for particle image velocimetry (PIV) and particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) to measure the properties of turbulent boundary layers is investigated in the velocity range from 30 to 50 m/s. The experiments correspond to momentum thickness-based Reynolds numbers of 3300 and 5100. A single bubble generator delivers nearly neutrally buoyant HFSB to seed the air flow developing over the flat plate. The HFSB motion analysis is performed by PTV using single-frame multi-exposure recordings. The measurements yield the local velocity and turbulence statistics. Planar two-component-PIV measurements with micron-sized droplets (DEHS) conducted under the same conditions provide reference data for the quantities of interest. In addition, the behavior of air-filled soap bubbles is studied where the effect of non-neutral buoyancy is more pronounced. The mean velocity profiles as well as the turbulent stresses obtained with HFSB are in good agreement with the flow statistics obtained with DEHS particles. The study illustrates that HFSB tracers can be used to determine the mean velocity and the turbulent fluctuations of turbulent boundary layers above a distance of approximately two bubble diameters from the wall. This work broadens the current range of application of HFSB from external aerodynamics of large-scale-PIV experiments towards wall-bounded turbulence.

The behaviour of nearly neutrally buoyant tracers is studied by means of experiments with helium-filled soap bubbles and numerical simulations. The current models used for estimating the slip velocity of heavy micro particles and neutrally buoyant particles are reviewed and extended to include the effect of unsteady forces and particle Reynolds number. The particle motion is analysed via numerical simulations of a rectilinear oscillatory flow and in the flow around an airfoil within a particle flow parameter space that is typical of large-scale PIV experiments. An empirical relation is obtained that estimates the particle slip velocity, depending on the particle-to-fluid density ratio, the particle Reynolds number and frequency of the local flow fluctuations. The model developed is applied to assess the slip velocity of helium-filled soap bubbles in a large-scale experiment conducted at the German–Dutch wind (DNW) tunnels in the flow around an airfoil, with chord Reynolds numbers up to three millions. Furthermore, a procedure is proposed that can be used to retrieve the bubbles mean density and dispersion from measurements of mean velocity and fluctuations, respectively. Graphic abstract

No abstract