Numerical Computation of Hydrodynamic Characteristics of an Automated Hand-Washing System

Abstract

The aim of this study is to develop a physical model and investigate the bactericidal effect of an automated hand-washing system through numerical computation, which is essential in areas affected by COVID-19 to ensure safety and limit the spread of the pandemic. The computational fluid dynamics approach is used to study the movement of the solution inside the hand-washing chamber. The finite element method with the k-ε model is applied to solve the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The numerical results provide insights into the solution’s hydrodynamic values, streamlines, and density in the two cases of with a hand and without a hand. The pressure and mean velocity of the fluid in the hand-washing chamber increases when the inlet flow rates increase. When the hand-washing chamber operates, it creates whirlpools around the hands, which remove bacteria. In addition, the liquid inlet flow affects the pressure in the hand-washing chamber. The ability to predict the hydraulic and cleaning performance efficiencies of the hand-washing chamber is crucial for evaluating its operability and improving its design in the future.

An Animated Visualization Method for Large-Scale Unstructured Unsteady Flow

“…Animation visualization is a general-purpose technique for displaying time series data and an essential technique for displaying unsteady flow fields. It imports and draws the flow field data of each time step in chronological order, forming an unsteady animation [2], and then displays the spatiotemporal characteristics of the unsteady flow field in animation form in a more comprehensive manner [3]. Unlike traditional animation, animation visualization does more than play pictures composed of pixels one after the other.…”