| Project/Area Number |
22K10596
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 58030:Hygiene and public health-related: excluding laboratory approach
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| Research Institution | Institute of Physical and Chemical Research |
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Principal Investigator |
BALE RAHUL 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 計算科学研究センター, 研究員 (20728737)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2022-04-01 – 2025-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,160,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥960,000)
Fiscal Year 2024: ¥1,690,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥390,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000)
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| Keywords | Droplet modelling / Indoor ventilation / Droplet modeling / Airborne Disease / Droplet Dispersion / Epidemiology |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the devastation that airborne diseases can cause. Globally, COVID-19 has claimed over 4.5M lives (16000 in Japan). The impact on the Japanese economy has been equally severe. To control and prevent such future pandemics, understanding the detailed mechanism of airborne disease transmission (ADT) is critical. Recent and past research studies involving real-world conditions are very few and limited in scope. The reason for this is the limitation in the CFD tool’s capability. In this work, we propose to develop CFD methods capable of overcoming past limitations.
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Modeling the various time scales involved in droplet emission and translation is one of the key challenges that was to be addressed in this work. We have successfully incorporated implicit schemes for species and N-S equations and a sub-time-stepping approach for the droplet dynamics to enable long-time droplet dispersion dynamics.
In addition to this we have already been able to apply the models developed so far to various applications ranging from indoor ventilation efficacy evaluation, multi-objective ventilation optimization, inhalation and deposition mechanism using detailed respiratory tract and realistic breathing cycle. The investigation of the deposition of respiratory droplets in respiratory tract involved interaction between two human subjects, one emitting droplet which modelled human speech, and the other subject inhaling with a detailed respiratory tract. The role of distance between the subjects, the orientation of the face along sideways and un-down were investigated in this study. Furthermore, the necessity of the a respiratory tract based inhalation for infection risk assessment as opposed to evaluating the risk based on the droplets entering the breathing zone was also investigated in the study.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
The project has progressed as planned except for the development of the droplet model to mimic the sputum liquid instead of the simple water.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The next phase of the project will involve development of a droplet model that can mimic the evaporation of the sputum fluid, development of generalized real world setting that incorporates, droplet emission, transport, interaction with obstacles, and inhalation, evaluation of the role of environmental factors on the transmission of airborne pathogens.
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