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Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
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Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 302–308

10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning, ISHVAC2017, 19-
22 October 2017, Jinan, China

Numerical Simulation of Coughed Droplets in Conference Room

Yixian Zhanga, Guohui Fengb,a,* ,Zhiqiang Kangb,Yang Bib,and Yilin Caib
a
Faculty of Urban Construction and Environmental Engineering, Chongqing University,174 Shazheng street, Chongqing 400044,China
b
School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, 9 Hunnan street, Shenyang 110168, China

Abstract

The viruses spread in the air-conditioning room with the droplets produced by talking, coughing, sneezing and other respiratory
behavior, which pollute the indoor air and threaten to human health. This paper studies the influence of lateral-supply top-return,
upper-supply top-return and bottom-supply upper-return in the transport of coughed droplets by using a Lagrangian model in a
conference room, besides no ventilation is considered for comparison. The non-steady-state is used and gravity, drag force and
Brownian force of coughed droplets are accounted. The simulation results indicate that the exposed sitting at the middle of
conference table are more susceptible to infection for lateral-supply top-return and upper-supply top-return. The exposed sitting
near the polluter are more susceptible to infection in bottom-supply upper-return. Bottom-supply upper-return air-flow
organization, such as Displacement Ventilation and Underfloor Air Distribution, can control the spread of respiratory diseases
effectively and provide people with a healthy and comfortable indoor environment.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and
Conditioning.
Air Conditioning.
Keywords: Coughed droplets; Air-flow organization; Numerical simulation; Conference room

1. Introduction

Humans spend over 85% of their time indoors, such as transport, workplace, and residence [1]. When contagious
individual talks, coughs or sneezes, infectious droplets are produced from nose and mouth, and spread in the air. It is
well recognized that reasonable air-flow organization can reduce the diffusion of pollutants and improve indoor air
quality. However, detailed understanding of droplets distribution characteristics in different air-flow organization of
the air-conditioning room by using Lagrangian model is still far from complete.

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: 24690716; fax: 24690716.
E-mail address: fengguohui888@163.com

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning.

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and
Air Conditioning.
10.1016/j.proeng.2017.09.981
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2 Yixian Zhang et al. / Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000

In recent years, with the outbreak of severe acute respiratory infectious diseases, a lot of studies have been done
for droplets. The main research methods include experiment and CFD numerical simulation. Zhu et al [2] used
Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique to measure initial velocity of coughed droplets in no ventilation
condition. The measurement results showed that the initial velocity range of coughed droplets is different between
6m/s~22m/s, and most of the numerical value is floating around 10m/s. Yang et al [3] used optical particle counter
to study coughed droplets diameter and found that droplets diameter spectra distribute from 0.6µm to 16µm and the
average is 8.35µm. Gao et al. [4] compare Mixing Ventilation, Displacement Ventilation and Underfloor Air
Distribution and conclude that sneezed/coughed droplets are more slowly diluted in Displacement Ventilation and
Underfloor Air Distribution than in Mixing Ventilation. Zhu et al. [5] compare the influence of three kinds of
Mixing Ventilation and displacement ventilation on droplets motion in a bus and conclude that the Displacement
Ventilation is more effective in limiting the risk of airborne infection. Cao et al. [6] find that a downward plane jet
can prevent the transport of cough particles from the cough dummy to the exposed dummy. The aim of the present
study is to determine the influence of lateral-supply top-return, upper-supply top-return and bottom-supply upper-
return in the transport of coughed droplets by simulating droplet trajectory using a Lagrangian model in a
conference room, besides no ventilation is considered for comparison.

Nomenclature

ρ air density
V velocity vector
ϕ each of the three velocity components (u, v, w)
Γϕ effective diffusion coefficient for each dependent variable
Sϕ source term
upi velocity of the particles in the i direction, m/s
Fd drag force, m/s2
G gravitation, m/s2
Fai additional forces, m/s2

2. Methods

2.1Case description

Fig. 1. Geometric model of conference room

1—the polluter；2—table；3—window；4—lateral-supply top-return inlet；5—upper-supply top-return inlet；6—bottom-supply upper-return

inlet；7—lateral-supply top-return, upper-supply top-return and bottom-supply upper-return outlet
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Due to neglect the interior items, maintenance structure heat transfer and other specific factors, the establishment
of simple geometric hexahedral room in CFD numerical simulation can greatly reduce the workload and accelerate
the speed of calculation. The dimensions of the conference room and table are respectively
X×Y×Z=4.2m×7.0m×3.2m and X×Y×Z=1.8m×4.3m×0.05m. Fig. 1 illustrates the configuration of the simulated
conference room. There are twelve people sitting in room. The human body model is simplified as four parts: head,
torso, arms and legs. The accuracy of CFD numerical simulation results is largely determined by setting the
boundary conditions. The coughing model is implemented by using a user defined function in the CFD software
Fluent. Table 1 illustrates detailed boundary conditions. The simulation uses non-steady-state. There are four cases
in this paper, they are lateral-supply top-return, upper-supply top-return, bottom-supply upper-return and no
ventilation.

Table 1 Boundary conditions

Items Description
Window Wall, temperature 36℃
Ceiling, floor and around walls Wall, adiabatic
Human body surface Wall, temperature 31℃, heat dissipation 80W
Inlet 4,5 and 6 Velocity inlet, velocity 2m/s, temperature 21℃
Outlet 7 Outflow
Mouth Velocity inlet, velocity 10m/s, temperature 35℃
Coughed droplets Density 1000kg/m3[7], diameter 5μm, flow rate 2.4e-9kg/s [8]

2.2Mathematical models

In this paper, RNG k-ε turbulent model is applied. The governing equations, including continuity, momentum,
energy, turbulent kinetic energy k and turbulent dissipation rate ε, can be written in the general format as follow [9].
∂ (ρφ ) + ∇ • (ρφ V ) = ∇ • (Γ ∇ φ ) + S (1)
φ φ
∂t
There are mainly two kinds of methods to simulate the movement of particles: Lagrangian method and Eulerian
method. The Lagrangian method is more suitable for the gas-solid two-phase flow whose particle phase is sparse,
and it can track particle trajectory. Therefore, Lagrangian method is chosen. The Lagrangian method solves the
following equation of motion of single particle or group to obtain velocity and integrate time and then gets trajectory
[10].
du pi (2)
= Fd + G + Fai
dt
Fai is the additional forces, m/s2 (besides drag force and gravity) exerted on unit particle mass, mainly including
thermophoretic force, added mass force, basset force, brownian force, saffman force and pressure gradient force.
Floating droplets is mainly due to gravity, drag force and Brownian force [11]. In order to simplify calculation, Fai
only includes Brownian force.

3. Results

The coughed droplets distribution is shown for lateral-supply top-return, upper-supply top-return and bottom-
supply upper-return and no ventilation at 1s, 5s, 10s, 20s, 50s, 100s and 150s in Fig. 2. For the ventilation, because
5μm coughed droplets produced from mouth is mainly affected by inertial force, they move forward along the initial
velocity for a distance. When inertia force is gradually reduced, coughed droplets are mainly affected by the gravity,
drag force and Brownian force and gradually spread to other space of conference room. A large number of coughed
droplets come together and shape like a cone at 1s. The coughed droplets have been spread around, but the
spreading range is small at 5s. At 10s, for the lateral-supply top-return, the coughed droplets spread in the middle of
the table. For the upper-supply top-return and bottom-supply upper-return, the coughed droplets spread to the
 Yixian Zhang et al. / Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 302–308 305
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exposed sitting at the middle of table. For the no ventilation, the coughed droplets travel a shortest distance among
the four cases. For the 20s, the exposed sitting at the middle of conference table are more susceptible to infection for
lateral-supply top-return and upper-supply top-return. But the exposed sitting near the polluter are more susceptible
to infection for bottom-supply upper-return. After 100s, for the ventilation, the spread range of coughed droplets
continues to increase and evenly distribute in the whole room. But for the no ventilation, the range of coughed
droplets diffusion is the smallest.

T=1s

T=5s

T=10s

T=20s

T=50s

T=100s

T=150s

Fig. 2 The coughed droplets distribution of lateral-supply top-return, upper-supply top-return and bottom-supply upper-return

The change of coughed droplets number with time is shown in Fig. 3. The coughed droplets numbers in lateral-
supply top-return and upper-supply top-return have little difference at 150s. But because of the downward airflow,
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before 50s, the coughed droplets number in upper-supply top-return is less 2500 than that in lateral-supply top-
return. A large eddy is formed in the room of lateral-supply top-return. 5000 coughed droplets stay in the room
following the eddy, so coughed droplets the number has not changed in the 60s~80s. The coughed droplets are
discharged from the room firstly in bottom-supply upper-return and the discharging number is the largest at 150s.
There are no coughed droplets discharging from the no ventilation conference room in 150s. The discharge capacity
of bottom-supply upper-return is the best.

9000
lateral-supply top-return
8000 upper-supply top-return
bottom-supply upper-return
7000 no ventilation
coughed droplets numbers

6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Time(s)

Fig. 3 Coughed droplets number-time curve

The change of coughed droplets concentration of respiratory plane with time is shown in Fig. 4. Definition of the
respiratory plane is cross section of the twelve people’s mouths centre. Because supply air flows attaching the
ceiling in lateral-supply top-return and has little influence on the air of respiratory plane, the coughed droplets
affected by inertia force move a long time in the respiratory plane after producing from mouth. The coughed
droplets concentration is the highest in lateral-supply top-return. Because the coughed droplets spread around, the
concentration is decreased at 5s. For the ventilation, because the air of respiratory plane is affected by eddy, the
coughed droplets concentration shows a trend of fluctuating downward after 5s. The coughed droplets concentration
is the lowest in bottom-supply upper-return. Bottom-supply upper-return has the best effect to reduce the coughed
droplets concentration of respiratory plane. For the no ventilation, a large number of coughed droplets travel at the
respiratory plane, so the coughed droplets concentration is the highest.

3.50E-010
lateral-supply top-return
upper-supply top-return
coughed droplets concentration(Kg/m )

3.00E-010
3

bottom-supply upper-return
no ventilation
2.50E-010

2.00E-010

1.50E-010

1.00E-010

5.00E-011

0.00E+000
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Time(s)

Fig. 4 Coughed droplets concentration-time curve

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4. Discussion

In order to simplify the calculation, some assumptions have been made in the simulation process. The
assumptions are shown as follows.
• Respiratory behaviour stops after human cough once with duration of 0.5s. The coughing velocity is constant.
The coughed droplets are 5µm.
• The wall surface of the maintenance structure is smooth and the air jet does not have friction with the wall
surface.
• The exposed don’t have respiratory behavior and produce droplets.
• The heat transfer between the coughed droplets and air is neglected, which isn’t considering the evaporation of
the coughed droplets.
• There are not condensation and collision phenomena among coughed droplets. The coughed droplets diameter
doesn’t change.
• Because the coughed droplets volumes are small enough, they have no effect on indoor air turbulence.

5. Conclusions

This paper uses CFD numerical simulation method to study the spatial distribution of coughed droplets produced
by coughing in conference room of three air-flow organizations including lateral-supply top-return, upper-supply
top-return and bottom-supply upper-return, besides no ventilation is considered for comparison. Seek the best air-
flow organization to control the spread of respiratory infectious diseases by comparing simulation results.
• The discharging of coughed droplets from the room is speeded up by ventilation. But coughed droplets are more
likely to spread to the exposed following with air flow.
• The exposed sitting at the middle of conference table are more susceptible to infection in lateral-supply top-return
and upper-supply top-return. The exposed sitting near the polluter are more susceptible to infection in the bottom-
supply upper-return.
• When the air supply velocity and inlet size are the same among three air-flow organizations, the characteristic of
bottom-supply upper-return is the best air-flow organization to reduce the coughed droplets concentration of
respiratory plane and discharge coughed droplets number. Bottom-supply upper-return air-flow organization,
such as Displacement Ventilation and Underfloor Air Distribution, can control the spread of respiratory diseases
effectively and provide people with a healthy and comfortable indoor environment.

Acknowledgement

This research is supported by National Natural Science Funds (51378318).

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