The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of aerosol dispersion in disease transmission in indoor environments. The present study experimentally investigates the dispersion and build-up of an exhaled aerosol modeled with polydisperse microscopic particles (approximately 1 μ m mean diameter) by a seated manikin in a relatively large indoor environment. The aims are to offer quantitative insight into the effect of common face masks and ventilation/air purification, and to provide relevant experimental metrics for modeling and risk assessment. Measurements demonstrate that all tested masks provide protection in the immediate vicinity of the host primarily through the redirection and reduction of expiratory momentum. However, leakages are observed to result in notable decreases in mask efficiency relative to the ideal filtration efficiency of the mask material, even in the case of high-efficiency masks, such as the R95 or KN95. Tests conducted in the far field ( distance from the subject) capture significant aerosol build-up in the indoor space over a long duration ( ). A quantitative measure of apparent exhalation filtration efficiency is provided based on experimental data assimilation to a simplified model. The results demonstrate that the apparent exhalation filtration efficiency is significantly lower than the ideal filtration efficiency of the mask material. Nevertheless, high-efficiency masks, such as the KN95, still offer substantially higher apparent filtration efficiencies (60% and 46% for R95 and KN95 masks, respectively) than the more commonly used cloth (10%) and surgical masks (12%), and therefore are still the recommended choice in mitigating airborne disease transmission indoors. The results also suggest that, while higher ventilation capacities are required to fully mitigate aerosol build-up, even relatively low air-change rates ( ) lead to lower aerosol build-up compared to the best performing mask in an unventilated space.

The aerodynamic drag of a human-scale wind tunnel model is obtained from large-scale particle tracking velocimetry measurements invoking the conservation of momentum in a control volume surrounding the model. Lagrangian particle tracking is employed to obtain the velocity and static pressure statistics in a thin volume in the wake of a cyclist mannequin at freestream velocities between 12.5 and 15 m/s, corresponding to Reynolds numbers from 5 × 10 5 to 6 × 10 5 based on the torso length. The spatial distributions of the time-average streamwise velocity and pressure coefficient match well with previous works reported in literature. The streamwise velocity fluctuations in the wake of the cyclist's model are presented, clearly demonstrating the unsteady nature of the main wake flow structures. Furthermore, the obtained aerodynamic drag follows the expected quadratic increase with increasing freestream velocity. The accuracy of this drag estimation is evaluated by comparison to force balance data and corresponds to 30 drag counts. The three terms composing the overall drag force, ascribed to the mean and fluctuating streamwise velocity and the mean pressure, are also evaluated separately, demonstrating that the resistive force is dominated by the contribution of the mean streamwise momentum deficit, whereas the contribution of the pressure term is negligible. Graphical abstractThe data presented in the figures in this work is available online (https ://doi.org/10.4121/uuid:7f42e 060-766d-4bf1-86c4-c648c 79431 7c)

No abstract

No abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic situation has called for an urgent need for the development of low cost respiratory ventilators across the globe. Such ventilators must include functionalities to cater to the patients experiencing severe respiratory illnesses, such as ARDS, where lung compliance and patient breathing cycles are dynamic, and require an accurate and controllable ventilator design. A low cost ventilator design is presented here which offers essential pressure and volume control ventilator modes for critical patients while being cost-effective as compared to all other presently available commercial alternatives which provide similar functions. The presented design is currently in the conceptual stage, and is presented here to elicit feedback for further refinement, prototyping, medical approval and large scale manufacturing.