Influence of the Visitor Walking on Airflow and the Bioaerosol Particles in Typical Open Tomb Chambers: An Experimental and Case Study

Abstract

Effective maintenance of ancient buildings is paid more and more attention worldwide. Many ancient buildings with high inheritance value were gradually destroyed, especially for murals in the open tombs. The bioaerosol particles (BPs) are the major source of contamination in murals and visitor walking could increase this hazard. In order to study the impact of visitors walking on the air flow and the distribution of BPs in the typical tomb chambers, the k-ε and Lagrangian discrete phase model were adopted. The walking visitor was described by the dynamic mesh, and the concentration of BPs in the simulation was verified by experimental sampling. The distribution and migration mechanism of contamination in the chamber were dynamically analyzed. The results indicate that the denser vortex generated when a visitor was walking, and the concentration of BPs changed obviously. Therefore, the number of BPs deposited on some precious murals increased and the contamination location shifted in the direction of visitor walking. In addition, the deposition time of BPs was lagging which would cause potential risk. This research can provide scientific basis for reducing murals contamination during visitor visiting and a reference for the maintenance of ancient buildings.

Spatial and temporal changes in microclimate affect disease distribution in two ancient tombs of Southern Tang Dynasty

“…Chinese tombs are mostly multi-chambered brick tombs with large chamber volumes [ 8 , 24 , 39 , 40 ]. Two tombs of the Southern Tang Dynasty (Qinling Tomb and Shunling Tomb), are significant cultural heritages in China.…”

Sustainable Tourism and Conservation of Underground Ecosystems through Airflow and Particle Distribution Modeling

“…In addition to the indoor climatic changes caused by human breathing, with temperature, relative humidity, and CO 2 concentrations increasing in atmosphere and often activating chemico-physical degradation processes of the lithic surfaces [7][8][9][10][11], tourists are carriers of allochthonous particles, such as dust, micro-plastics, fibers, hair, and also fungi, bacteria, spores, and seeds [12][13][14]. These constitute inorganic and organic inputs in the ecosystem, altering its natural ecological equilibrium [2,4,11,[15][16][17], as well as activating forms of wall bio-deterioration, including mural paintings and speleothem surfaces [2,18,19].…”