Numerical Simulation of Indoor Human Sneezing

Author(s):  
Isam Janajreh ◽  
Muhammad Sajjad ◽  
MD. Islam ◽  
Lina Janajreh

Abstract Transient numerical simulations have been carried out to mimic and analyse the transmission of various species resulting from human sneezing. The extent of the spread of sneezed air and associated droplets is also investigated based on various parameters. A 2D geometry of the human face is considered that captures the true topology and the outlet characteristics of the exhaled air mixture. Numerous parameters are required to be considered to capture the out-coming mixture trajectory and to track its concentration evolution as it enters and entrains with the surrounding air. These parameters include the velocity of the exhaled air mixture, the extent of mouth opening, the distribution of the mixture fraction, and its mist content. A multi-species Eulerian flow with discrete phase Lagrangian particles is considered. The results include the spatial and temporal distributions of the species and their velocity contour plots. Specifically, the concentration of the exhaled species is captured both spatially and temporally at several hypothetical stations within the computational domain, and away from the source to substantiate/refute the current recommended social distance parameter.

Author(s):  
Yasmin Khakpour ◽  
Herek L. Clack

Particulate sampling in the flue gas at the Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) outlet during injection of powdered activated carbons (PACs) has provided strong anecdotal evidence indicating that injected PACs can penetrate the ESP in significant concentrations. The low resistivity of PAC is consistent with poor collection efficiency in an ESP and lab-scale testing has revealed significantly different collection behavior of PAC in an ESP as compared to fly ash. The present study illustrates the use of a commercial CFD package — FLUENT — to investigate precipitation of powdered activated carbon (PAC) in the presence and absence of electric field. The computational domain is designed to represent a 2-D wire-plate ESP channel. The governing equations include those covering continuous phase transport, electric potential, air ionization, and particle charging. The particles are tracked using a Lagrangian Discrete Phase Model (DPM). In addition, a custom user-defined function (UDF) uses a deforming boundary condition and a prescribed critical particle velocity to account for particle deposition and dust-cake growth on the electrodes. The effect of Electrohydrodynamics (EHD) induced flow on the ESP collection efficiency under various flow and particle characteristics as well as different ESP configurations are illustrated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2076 (1) ◽  
pp. 012043
Author(s):  
Dan Mei ◽  
Xuemei Xu

Abstract The particle transport characteristics have a significant effect on the exposure of residents and pedestrians to traffic pollutants in the street canyon. Around the lakeside environment, the diffusion of water vapor affects the flow characteristics of the gas mixture, which has a considerable influence on particle transport in the street canyon. A computational domain containing water bodies from which droplets were emitted by evaporation, a lakeside avenue and architectural groups were constructed. The RNG k-ε turbulence model and discrete phase model were applied to study the velocity, pressure, density of the airflow and particle transport characteristics in the street canyon with the absolute humidity increase (AHI) of 0, 3.8×10-4 g/kg, 1.7×10-3 g/kg, 3.1×10-3 g/kg. The saturated vapor pressure on the surface of droplets was modified by the pressure correction equation, which can limit the evaporation rate of the droplets. The simulation results demonstrated that, the diffusion of vapor could reduce the airflow velocity and increase the air pressure and density. The particle concentration in the street canyon increased with the AHI. Most of the pathogens in the air are transmitted with the flow of particle, and the study has some guiding significance to prevent the transmission of viruses.


2016 ◽  
Vol 139 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Chen ◽  
Francine Battaglia

A bluff body burner was investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to assess the effects of inlet turbulence intensity and compare the combustion characteristics with and without the bluff-body modeled in the computational domain. The effects of the CFD modeling techniques were assessed for inlet turbulence intensity, using a two-dimensional (2D) versus three-dimensional (3D) computational domain, and whether to include the bluff body in the domain. The simulations were compared with experimental data from the Turbulent Nonpremixed Flames workshop. The results showed that the turbulence intensity specified as a boundary condition at the fuel-jet inlet had a substantial impact on the axial decay of mixture fraction and temperature, which was overlooked by previous researchers when the bluff body was not modeled. The numerical results of the 2D axisymmetric and 3D domains without the bluff body showed that the 3D domain provided the best predictions when the turbulence intensity was defined using a published correlation versus experimental estimates since the k–ε turbulence model underestimated dissipation. It was shown that a 2D axisymmetric domain can be used to obtain predictions with acceptable numerical errors without the inclusion of the bluff body, and that a uniform inlet velocity can be specified, provided that the inlet turbulence intensity is defined using the correlation by Durst et al. (“Methods to Set Up and Investigate Low Reynolds Number, Fully Developed Turbulent Plane Channel Flows,” ASME J. Fluids Eng., 120(3), pp. 496–503.). Finally, further analysis of flow and flame characteristics demonstrated that when the bluff-body was included for the 2D axisymmetric domain, predictions improved and the flow was insensitive to inlet turbulence intensities because the bluff-body provided an entrance region for the flow to develop before mixing, thus reducing inlet effects. Thus, if experimental inlet data are not available, the addition of the bluff-body in the computational domain provides a more accurate jet velocity profile entering the reacting domain and eliminates errors caused by the inlet boundary condition.


2007 ◽  
Vol 583 ◽  
pp. 273-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
JULIEN REVEILLON ◽  
FRANCOIS-XAVIER DEMOULIN

Droplet segregation in isotropic homogeneous turbulence is analysed using a spectral direct numerical simulation solver to describe the evolution of the turbulent carrier phase, whose characteristic properties remain statistically stationary due to a semi-deterministic forcing scheme. Lagrangian dilute spray modelling is employed to describe the discrete-phase evolution. The liquid density is distributed on an Eulerian mesh to analyse the evolution of the spray and its spatial distribution. This gives results in accordance with classical methods for droplet segregation. It also allows a deeper analysis of the spray evolution. In particular, droplet segregation and vapour mass fraction may be analysed jointly. First, droplet segregation phenomena are studied through the analysis of the formation and the geometry of the droplet clusters. Then, the effects of segregation on spray evaporation are investigated from both the dispersed and carrier phase points of view. At equilibrium, droplet dynamics leads to different segregation levels that are associated with characteristic Stokes numbers. It appears that the evaporation process evolves in three different stages in time: single-droplet mode in the early stage, cluster mode in the intermediate stage and a gaseous mode in the late stage. Segregation levels strongly affect the evolution of the mean vapour mixture fraction during the second stage, while the corresponding standard deviation is affected for longer, up to the third stage in our simulations. However, from the evolution of the integral scale and the shape of the energy spectrum, it appears that turbulent mixing eliminates the segregation effects, apart from the first evaporation stage when the droplet segregation determines the vapour distribution.


Author(s):  
Nicholas C. W. Treleaven ◽  
Andrew Garmory ◽  
Gary J. Page

Abstract In the case of aircraft engines, the fuel is injected as a liquid spray which may play a role in thermoacoustic instabilities through creating changes to the mixture fraction inside the combustion chamber. This study uses two-phase incompressible non-reacting large eddy simulation with Lagrangian particle tracking to show how spray droplets of different sizes can be affected by large scale hydrodynamic structures and acoustic forcing. The forcing is applied at the inlets of a truncated computational domain that only includes the geometry downstream of the fuel injector using the newly developed PODFS (proper orthogonal decomposition Fourier series) method. The PODFS is a model that can reproduce the effects of acoustic forcing by extracting planes of data from an auxiliary acoustically forced compressible unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes simulation. A proper orthogonal decomposition analysis shows that fuel droplets of a typical size seen in jet engines are more sensitive to acoustic and hydrodynamic structures than droplets with an order of magnitude larger or smaller diameter, consistent with their Stokes number. Phase and azimuthally averaged results show that fluctuations of the spray mixture fraction represented by large droplets affect the total spray mixture fraction much more than fluctuations of the small droplets. An additional intermittent spray dispersion mechanism was identified that is due to intermittent vorticity being generated between the two outer injector flow passages. An injector design modification has been suggested that will reduce the prevalence of this mechanism.


Author(s):  
Palani Kumar Chidambaram ◽  
Tae Hoon Song ◽  
In Won Kim ◽  
Kwon Hee Lee ◽  
Heuy Dong Kim

In a gas turbine engine a wet compression system is installed to increase the net power output. However, this may erode compressor blades due to fine water droplets hitting the surface. In the present work, numerical investigations are carried out to study blade erosion by water droplets. The computational domain consists of a rotating blade jig on which four blades are mounted. This represents the simultaneous experiments being carried out. Sliding mesh method is used to incorporate rotary movement of the blades. Water is injected as spray using an impact-pin nozzle. Experimentally measured spray parameters like the flow rate, particle diameter, etc. are given as initial and boundary conditions in the simulations. Discrete Phase Model (DPM) is used to track the particles in the domain. Droplet parameters like average velocity, diameter and number of droplets hitting each cell on the blade surface are monitored. These parameters are then used to predict the rate of erosion on the surface. In this manuscript, the progresses in the prediction of blade erosion at various blade rotational speed (rpm) is reported.


1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 200-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Umiltà ◽  
Francesca Simion ◽  
Eloisa Valenza

Four experiments were aimed at elucidating some aspects of the preference for facelike patterns in newborns. Experiment 1 showed a preference for a stimulus whose components were located in the correct arrangement for a human face. Experiment 2 showed a preference for stimuli that had optimal sensory properties for the newborn visual system. Experiment 3 showed that babies directed their attention to a facelike pattern even when it was presented simultaneously with a non-facelike stimulus with optimal sensory properties. Experiment 4 showed the preference for facelike patterns in the temporal hemifield but not in the nasal hemifield. It was concluded that newborns' preference for facelike patterns reflects the activity of a subcortical system which is sensitive to the structural properties of the stimulus.


1987 ◽  
Vol 26 (03) ◽  
pp. 143-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Fill ◽  
M. Oberladstätter ◽  
J. W. Krzesniak

The mean activity concentration of1311 during inhalation by the nuclear medicine personnel was measured at therapeutic activity applications of 22 GBq (600 mCi) per week. The activity concentration reached its maximum in the exhaled air of the patients 2.5 to 4 hours after oral application. The normalized maximum was between 2 • 10−5 and 2 • 10−3 Bq-m−3 per administered Bq. The mean activity concentration of1311 inhaled by the personnel was 28 to 1300 Bq-m−3 (0.8 to 35 nCi-rrf−3). From this the1311 uptake per year was estimated to be 30 to 400 kBq/a (x̄ = 250, SD = 50%). The maximum permitted uptake from air per year is, according to the German and Austrian radiation protection ordinances 22/21 µiCi/a (= 8 • 105 Bq/a). At maximum 50% and, on the average, 30% of this threshold value are reached. The length of stay of the personnel in the patient rooms is already now limited to such an extent that 10% of the maximum permissible whole-body dose for external radiation is not exceeded. Therefore, increased attention should be paid also to radiation exposure by inhalation.


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