Droplets Transmission Mechanism in a Commercial Wide-Body Aircraft Cabin

Abstract

COVID-19 is a respiratory infectious disease that spreads readily between people, and an urgent issue of passengers’ exposure risk assessment in commercial aircraft has been raised because an aircraft cabin as a confined space may carry and transmit the disease worldwide. In this study, the droplets transmission process under different ventilation systems in a twin-aisle wide-body aircraft was studied using CFD simulations and the infection risk of passengers was assessed by the improved Wells–Riley model. Numerical results found that the transmission mechanism of droplets in the aircraft cabin was different depending on the type of ventilation systems and the location of the infectious source. Annular airflow could effectively enhance the ability of droplets transmission, while direct airflow, represented by displacement ventilation, could significantly inhibit droplets transmission. Accordingly, a new type of ventilation system was proposed based on the concept that the overall space is organized by annular airflow and the local area is direct airflow. Compared with sidewall mixing ventilation system, the infection risk of the new ventilation system presented in this study is reduced by 27%.

Optimization of Cabin Virus Transmission Suppression Technology Based on Hanging Curtain Physical Isolation

“…Table 3 describes the boundary conditions of this simulation study. It is worth noting that in this paper, the human respiratory process was simplified to a uniform exhalation airflow based on previous studies [26,35,36]. Droplets contained non-volatile solid particles (viral nuclei) that remain spherical throughout the evaporation process.…”

“…[23][24][25]. In terms of methods for analyzing the probability of individual infection, the main methods are the Wells-Riley equation [26], the Dose-response model [27], and the Monte Carlo model [28]. The Wells-Riley equation calculates the average risk of infection in a population by taking into account the respiratory volume and ventilation rates as well as exposure time.…”

Effectiveness of portable air cleaners in mitigating respiratory virus transmission risk

“…At present, many scholars have done some research on the diffusion and removal of pollutants or viruses by ventilation system. For example, Kong et al [12] simulated the propagation of droplets under different ventilation systems in a wide-body aircraft cabin, and concluded that direct airflow can significantly inhibit droplet propagation. However, only a few scholars have focused on the potential role of air purification in controlling the spread of virus and reducing the risk of infection.…”

Influences of the Fresh Air Volume on the Removal of Cough-Released Droplets in a Passenger Car of a High-Speed Train Using CFD

“…Ren et al [7] utilized the numerical method to study the performance of several typical ventilation strategies in an office and evaluated the infection risk, found that the stratum ventilation (SV) showed greater performance in mitigating infection disease spread, with an air distribution performance index (ADPI) of 90.5% and minimum infection risk of 13%. Kong et al [8] proposed a new type of ventilation system based on the concept that the overall space is organized by annular airflow and the local area is direct airflow, which reduced the infection risk by 27% compared with a side wall mixing ventilation system. Talaat et al [9] demonstrated that a relatively small fraction (21%-26%) of exhaled particles are directly removed by the ventilation system, while the majority of the particles deposit on surfaces in the cabin of a Boeing 737 aircraft.…”