Manara - Qatar Research Repository
Browse

CFD Analyses: The Effect of Pressure Suction and Airflow Velocity on Coronavirus Dispersal

Download (5.03 MB)
journal contribution
submitted on 2024-09-10, 05:47 and posted on 2024-09-10, 05:48 authored by Bushra Obeidat, Odi Fawwaz Alrebei, Ibrahim Atef Abdallah, Eman F. Darwish, Abdulkarem Amhamed

Hospital emergency departments (EDs) are hubs for highly transmissible infectious diseases, posing the highest risk of viral infection transmission. With the current COVID-19 outbreak, it has become clear that the ED design needs to be altered in order to be successful in containing the pandemic. The purpose of this study is to use a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to evaluate the ventilation system design for an emergency department at a university hospital. The kinetic energy and velocity patterns of turbulence were analyzed to determine which areas of the ED were most susceptible to viral transmission. Additionally, the impact of pressure suction on COVID-19 dispersion has been investigated. Three critical areas of the ED, overnight patient beds, surgical rooms, and resuscitation rooms, all had much higher air velocity, dispersion, and mixing levels than the rest of the department’s spaces, according to the simulation findings. Air transmission from these sites to adjacent regions is a possibility in the scenario studied, increasing the likelihood of the virus spreading from these locations and infecting people in the surrounding areas. The results of these simulations may be utilized to provide recommendations to the hospital administration about the placement of inlets and outlets, the separation of areas, and the interior design of the spaces and corridors.

Other Information

Published in: Applied Sciences
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/app11167450

Funding

Qatar National Research Fund (NPRP13S-0203-200243), Qatar Thermal Comfort Standard (QTCS): Maximizing comfort to minimize overcooling and energy waste.

History

Language

  • English

Publisher

MDPI

Publication Year

  • 2021

License statement

This Item is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Institution affiliated with

  • Hamad Bin Khalifa University
  • Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute - HBKU

Usage metrics

    Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute - HBKU

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC