A Preliminary Numerical Investigation of Airborne Droplet Dispersion in Aircraft Cabins

Abstract

The emergence of the novel coronavirus has led to a global pandemic which has led to the airline industry facing severe losses. For air travel to recover, airlines need to ensure safe air travel. In this paper, the authors have modeled droplet dispersion after a single breath from an index patient. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are conducted using the k-ωSST turbulence model in ANSYS Fluent. The authors have taken into consideration several parameters such as the size of the mouth opening, the velocity of the cabin air as well as the number of droplets being exhaled by the index patient to ensure a realistic simulation. Preliminary results indicate that after a duration of 20 s, droplets from the index patient disperse within a 10 m 2 cabin area. About 75% of the droplets are found disperse for up to 2 m axially behind the index patient. This could possess an enhanced risk to passengers sitting behind the index patient. Ultimately, this paper provides an insight into the potential of CFD to visualise droplet dispersal and give impetus to ensure that necessary mitigating measures can be taken to reduce the risk of infection through droplet dispersal.

Evaluation of different air distribution systems in a commercial airliner cabin in terms of comfort and COVID-19 infection risk

“…Long periods of travel make passengers and crew members more sensitive to the cabin environment [ 2 , 3 ]. The airborne transmission of infectious diseases has been reported in commercial aircraft, such as the transmission of influenza [ 4 ], tuberculosis [ 5 ], severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) [ 6 ], and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [ [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] ]. Therefore, research on the indoor environments of airliner cabins is particularly important.…”

A Review on Applications of CFD Modeling in COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Since the outbreak of COVID-19, scientists has focused most of their attention on the investigation of respiratory droplets produced by people who are infected by this virus. Bhatia and Santis [25] simulated dispersed droplets which are exhaled by a single breath of an index patient placed inside a 10 m 2 cabin area, using the k − ω ST turbulence model conducted in ANSYS Fluent to provide an insight into visualizing droplets. The results show that about 75% of droplets disperse within the cabin for up to 2 m axially behind the infected person by mixing with the airflow during 20 s. This exposes the passenger sitting behind the index patient to the risk of infection by dispersed droplets.…”

Numerical Modeling and Simulation of the Droplet Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the Ambient Environment and Its Relevance to Social Distancing

“…Since the COVID-19 outbreak, researchers have focused on the CFD-based investigations on SARS-CoV-2 transmission from affected individuals through droplets. Bhatia and De Santis [16] used the k-ωST turbulence model simulated using Ansys Fluent software to analyze the airborne SARS-CoV-2 dispersion in airplane cabins. e authors demonstrated a 75% chance of droplet transmission up to 2 m within the airplane cabin area.…”