Predicting Contamination Spread Inside a Hospital Breakroom with Multiple Occupants Using High Fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation on a Virtual Twin

Mitigating the rise and spread of contaminants is a major challenge faced during any contagious disease outbreak. In densely occupied areas, such as a breakroom, the risk of cross-contamination between healthy and infected individuals is significantly higher, thereby increasing the risk of further spread of infectious diseases. In this study, a high fidelity transient fluid solver and Lagrangian particle-based method were used to predict the airflow distribution and contaminant transmission inside a detailed 3D virtual twin of an emergency hospital breakroom. The solver efficiently captured the contaminants emitted simultaneously from multiple talking occupants as well as their propagation inside the breakroom. The influence of airflow distribution on the aerosol spread inside the breakroom for two different air conditioning vent positions was demonstrated with all occupants and with reduced occupants. The baseline simulation with all occupants in the breakroom showed a higher risk of contamination overall as well as between adjacent occupants. It was observed that there was a 26% reduction in the contaminants received by the occupants with the proposed modified vent arrangement and a 70% reduction with the scenarios considering a reduced number of occupants. Furthermore, the fomite deposition and cross-contamination between adjacent humans significantly changed with different ventilation layouts. Based on the simulation results, areas with higher contaminant concentrations were identified, providing information for the positioning of UV lights in the breakroom to efficiently eliminate/reduce the contaminants.