2023 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
CFD simulations guided prevention and mitigation of Airborne Disease Transmission
| Project/Area Number |
22K10596
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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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| Keywords | Droplet modelling / Indoor ventilation |
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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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| Causes of Carryover |
Reason for unused budget last year: The necessity of running massively large scale simulations did not arise. Large scale simulation are expected to be run the next fiscal year.
Plan for usage for the next year: The remainder of the research grant is planned to be used for acquiring computational resources for running large-scale simulations.
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