{"title":"A Respiratory Simulator for the Study of Pathogen Transmission in Indoor Environments","authors":"Claudio Mucignat, Bernhard Roth, Ivan Lunati","doi":"10.1155/2024/8368202","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Detailed investigation of pathogen transmission by respiratory droplets requires extensive experimental datasets with high spatial–temporal resolution in a wide range of ambient conditions. Respiratory simulators are attractive tools for those measurements, because they improve repeatability, endurance, and control of experimental conditions with respect to studies on human subjects. They also enable the use of powerful experimental techniques, which may raise health concerns if employed on humans. In this paper, we design and present a respiratory simulator, which is capable of accurately reproducing physiological flow rate profiles and allows the investigation of the spatial and temporal features of the exhaust flow by background-oriented schlieren (BOS) and particle image velocimetry (PIV). We use laser interferometry and high-magnification shadowgraphy to verify the size distributions of the emitted droplets, and we quantify the evolution of the droplet concentration during cough events by Mie scattering analysis. The experiments demonstrate the ability of the respiratory simulator to generate highly reproducible cough events with precise and controllable droplet size distributions over a wide range of flow rates.</p>","PeriodicalId":13529,"journal":{"name":"Indoor air","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1155/2024/8368202","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Indoor air","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2024/8368202","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CONSTRUCTION & BUILDING TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Detailed investigation of pathogen transmission by respiratory droplets requires extensive experimental datasets with high spatial–temporal resolution in a wide range of ambient conditions. Respiratory simulators are attractive tools for those measurements, because they improve repeatability, endurance, and control of experimental conditions with respect to studies on human subjects. They also enable the use of powerful experimental techniques, which may raise health concerns if employed on humans. In this paper, we design and present a respiratory simulator, which is capable of accurately reproducing physiological flow rate profiles and allows the investigation of the spatial and temporal features of the exhaust flow by background-oriented schlieren (BOS) and particle image velocimetry (PIV). We use laser interferometry and high-magnification shadowgraphy to verify the size distributions of the emitted droplets, and we quantify the evolution of the droplet concentration during cough events by Mie scattering analysis. The experiments demonstrate the ability of the respiratory simulator to generate highly reproducible cough events with precise and controllable droplet size distributions over a wide range of flow rates.
期刊介绍:
The quality of the environment within buildings is a topic of major importance for public health.
Indoor Air provides a location for reporting original research results in the broad area defined by the indoor environment of non-industrial buildings. An international journal with multidisciplinary content, Indoor Air publishes papers reflecting the broad categories of interest in this field: health effects; thermal comfort; monitoring and modelling; source characterization; ventilation and other environmental control techniques.
The research results present the basic information to allow designers, building owners, and operators to provide a healthy and comfortable environment for building occupants, as well as giving medical practitioners information on how to deal with illnesses related to the indoor environment.