Aerosol Particle transport and accumulation in indoor air: comparison of experiment and simulation

Abstract

The global outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 made understanding pathogen-laden aerosol transport more relevant than ever to understand an important transmission route. To investigate how aerosol particles accumulate in confined spaces due to continuous breathing, we investigate particle concentrations over time in a small room. The geometry is ventilated and equipped with two heated manikins, one of which is exhaling aerosol continuously through the mouth over 30 minutes. We investigate this setup by means of local particle measurements in the center plane and a RANS simulation with transient particle transport. It is shown that the particle concentration increases logarithmically and attains a nearly steady state, for which we compare the resulting local particle concentrations normalized to the source concentration. We find good agreement to the experiment in the exhalation zone of the breathing manikin and larger differences for the sensor positions beneath the ventilation inlet.