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. 2021 Sep 15;15(5):859–870. doi: 10.1007/s12273-021-0836-1

Quantitative distribution of human exhaled particles in a ventilation room

Zhijian Liu 1, Hangyao Zhu 1, Yangfan Song 1,✉, Guoqing Cao 2
PMCID: PMC8450698  PMID: 34567435

Abstract

Respiratory viruses can be attached to human exhaled particles and spread from person to person through respiratory activities. The purpose of this study is to obtain the quantitative description formula of human exhaled particles in the ventilated room through amount number of numerical simulation calculations and regression statistical analysis of the simulated data. In this study, a combination of numerical simulation and laboratory experiments was used, and the results were tallied preferably. Bacillus subtilis was released as a release source to investigate the migration and distribution of bioaerosol. The results show that under the condition of high air supply velocity, due to the disturbance of human respiration and airflow, the diffusion velocity of exhaled particles was faster and the diffusion range is larger than that of low air supply velocity within the same time frame. No matter where the location of the manikin was in the room, the exhaled particles would spread to the whole room in at least 900 s. The method used in this study could be used to predict the distribution of human exhaled particles concentration in different indoor spaces, such as public transport and hospitals. These findings could provide valuable reference for the location of indoor air purifiers, which plays a guiding role in the construction of a healthy indoor environment.

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Keywords: droplet aerosols, particulate concentrations, bioaerosol release experiment, CFD predictions

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2019YFC1520700), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41977368), the National Science and Technology Ministry of China (No. 2017YFC0702800), Opening Funds of State Key Laboratory of Building Safety and Built Environment National Engineering Research Center of Building Technology (No. BSBE2017-08).

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