CFD Simulation of COVID Aerosol Dispersion in Indoor Environments

Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations for the droplet’s dispersion generated by a cough in an indoor background, droplets trajectory, and evaporation time are predicted to be related to the droplet’s diameter and relative humidity. In general, medium-size droplets have higher axial penetration potential, and large droplets tend to settle on the ground due to gravity. Also, larger droplets take a longer time to evaporate. Smaller droplets tend to be suspended in the flow field with small penetration potential and tend to fade faster; smaller droplets < 20 μm evaporate completely before the simulation time reaches 0.75 sec. To study the effect of Relative Humidity (RH) on the evaporation rate, in particular, the present study offers three simulations, all with the same standard room conditions, only differ in relative humidity s 40%, 60%, and 90%. Another source of variability is the cough-expired volume. This study adopts existent experimental work to establish two cough flow rate profiles. The Lagrangian discrete phase model is adopted along with the species model to track and investigate the cough droplet dispersion and evaporation.