Influence of indoor airflow on airborne disease transmission in a classroom

It has been widely accepted that the most effective way to mitigate airborne disease transmission in an indoor space is to increase the ventilation airflow, measured in air change per hour (ACH). However, increasing ACH did not effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19. To better understand the role of ACH and airflow large-scale patterns, a comprehensive fully transient computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of two-phase flows based on a discrete phase model (DPM) was performed in a university classroom setting with people present. The investigations encompass various particle sizes, ventilation layouts, and flow rates. The findings demonstrated that the particle size threshold at which particles are deemed airborne is highly influenced by the background flow strength and large-scale flow pattern, ranging from 5 µm to 10 µm in the cases investigated. The effects of occupants are significant and must be precisely accounted for in respiratory particle transport studies. An enhanced ventilation design (UFAD-CDR) for university classrooms is introduced that places a premium on mitigating airborne disease spread. Compared to the baseline design at the same ACH, this design successfully reduced the maximum number density of respiratory particles by up to 85%. A novel airflow-related parameter, Horizontality, is introduced to quantify and connect the large-scale airflow pattern with indoor aerosol transport. This underscores that ACH alone cannot ensure or regulate air quality. In addition to the necessary ACH for air exchange, minimizing horizontal bulk motion is essential for reducing aerosol transmissibility within the room.