Numerical Simulation of Heat Transfer and Spread of Virus Particles in the Car Interior

The epidemic caused by the coronavirus infection SARS-CoV-2 at the beginning of 2022 affected approximately 500 million people in all countries. The source of infection is the particles of the virus, which, when breathing, talking, and coughing, are released with the respiratory droplets and aerosol dust of an infected person. Actions aimed at combating and minimizing the consequences of coronavirus infection led to taking measures in scientific areas to investigate the processes of the spread of viral particles in the air, in ventilation, and air conditioning systems of premises and transport, filtration through masks, the effect of partitions, face shields, etc. The article presents a mathematical model of the spread of viral particles in technological transport. Air intake diverters and the operator's respiratory tract are the sources of the virus. The Euler-Lagrange approach was used to simulate liquid droplets in a flow. Here, the liquid phase is considered as a continuous medium using Navier-Stokes equations, the continuity equation, the energy equation, and the diffusion equation. Accounting for diffusion makes it possible to explicitly model air humidity and is necessary to consider the evaporation of droplets (changes in the mass and size of particles containing the virus). Liquid droplets are modeled using the discrete-phase model (DPM), in which each particle is tracked in a Lagrange coordinate system. The DPM method is effective, since the volume fraction of particles is small relative to the total volume of the medium, and the interaction of particles with each other can be neglected. In this case, the discrete and continuous phases are interconnected through the source terms in the equations. The averaged RANS equations are solved numerically using the k-omega turbulence model in the Ansys Fluent package. The task was solved in a static form and in the time domain. For a non-stationary problem, the stabilization time of the variables is found. The simulation results are obtained in the form of fields of pressures, velocities, temperatures and air densities, and the field of propagation of particles containing the virus. Various regimes were studied at various free flow rates and initial velocities of droplets with viral particles. The results of trajectories and velocities of particles, and particle concentrations depending on time, size, and on the evaporability of particles are obtained.

Automated summary

The coronavirus infection SARS-CoV-2 affected around 500 million people in the beginning of 2022. This article presents a mathematical model to study the spread of viral particles in technological transport. By simulating the movement of liquid droplets in a flow, accounting for diffusion and evaporation, the propagation of viral particles is investigated.