Effect of an accelerating metro cabin on the diffusion of cough droplets.

Effect of an accelerating metro cabin on the diffusion of cough droplets.

Publication date: Jun 19, 2024

Coronaviruses being capable of spreading through droplet contamination have raised significant concerns regarding high-capacity public rail transport, such as the metro. Within a rapidly moving railcar cabin, the internal airflow lags behind the bulkhead, generating internally induced airflow that accelerates droplet dispersion within a non-inertial reference system. This study investigates the impact of acceleration on the diffusion of cough droplets of varying sizes using computational fluid dynamics. The modified k-ε equation in ANSYS(R) Fluent was utilized to simulate droplet diffusion under different body orientations by adjusting the inertial force correction source term. Results indicate that droplets in the middle size range (50-175 μm) are primarily influenced by inertial forces, whereas smaller droplets (3. 5-20 μm) are predominantly controlled by air drag forces. Regardless of facial orientation, the outlet of high-capacity public rail transport poses the highest risk of infection.

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Concepts Keywords
20m Accelerated cabin
Contamination Computer Simulation
Coronaviruses coronavirus disease
Fluent Cough
Railcar COVID-19
Diffusion
Humans
Hydrodynamics
Inertial force
Internal-induced airflow
Metro
Railroads
SARS-CoV-2

Semantics

Type Source Name
drug DRUGBANK Medical air
disease MESH infection
drug DRUGBANK Coenzyme M
pathway KEGG Coronavirus disease
disease MESH cross infection
disease IDO pathogen
disease VO Gap
disease MESH COVID 19
disease VO injection
disease MESH respiratory diseases
disease IDO algorithm
disease VO time
disease VO effective
drug DRUGBANK Potassium
drug DRUGBANK Flunarizine
disease VO mouth
drug DRUGBANK Trestolone
disease MESH infectious diseases
disease VO dose
disease VO report
disease VO inactivation
disease IDO process
disease MESH postures
disease VO Viruses
disease IDO quality
disease MESH influenza
drug DRUGBANK Nonoxynol-9
disease MESH Pulmonary Disease
pathway REACTOME Reproduction

Original Article

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