TY - JOUR
T1 - Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) studies on airborne transmission in hospitals
T2 - A review on the research approaches and the challenges
AU - Tsang, Tsz Wun
AU - Mui, Kwok Wai
AU - Wong, Ling Tim
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was jointly supported by a grant from the Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) COVID-19 and Novel Infectious Disease (NID) Research Exercise , the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project no. PolyU P0033675/C5108-20G , HKPU P0033675/E-RB0P , PolyU 15217221 P0037773/Q-86B , PolyU 152088/17E P0005278/Q-59V ) and the Research Institute for Smart Energy (RISE) Matching Fund (Project no. P0038532 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022
PY - 2023/1/1
Y1 - 2023/1/1
N2 - Airborne transmission has always been one of the contributors to healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Throughout the years, building researchers and medical experts have conducted a lot of studies to identify the effect of hospital ventilation and other associated factors on airborne transmission to provide a better understanding of HAIs and recommend improvement strategies. Despite the efforts, a general agreement on the optimal ventilation scheme and management strategy for hospitals has not been reached. There is an obvious need for interdisciplinary research in the field to address the pressing challenges. In view of that, a systematic review of the current Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) research approaches for investigating the airborne transmission in hospitals was conducted. A total of 95 journal articles and conference papers published between the years 2003 and 2021 were reviewed. The objective, location, methodology, validity, and useful findings of each research study were examined. By clustering the studies according to their research focuses, some of the notable studies were highlighted to present the challenges and special considerations of applying CFD on airborne transmission in hospital setting. Recommendations for maintaining and improving hospital ventilation while minimizing airborne transmission were summarized. Future research directions were also proposed and discussed to provide insights into developing more comprehensive and realistic CFD for airborne transmission in hospitals.
AB - Airborne transmission has always been one of the contributors to healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Throughout the years, building researchers and medical experts have conducted a lot of studies to identify the effect of hospital ventilation and other associated factors on airborne transmission to provide a better understanding of HAIs and recommend improvement strategies. Despite the efforts, a general agreement on the optimal ventilation scheme and management strategy for hospitals has not been reached. There is an obvious need for interdisciplinary research in the field to address the pressing challenges. In view of that, a systematic review of the current Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) research approaches for investigating the airborne transmission in hospitals was conducted. A total of 95 journal articles and conference papers published between the years 2003 and 2021 were reviewed. The objective, location, methodology, validity, and useful findings of each research study were examined. By clustering the studies according to their research focuses, some of the notable studies were highlighted to present the challenges and special considerations of applying CFD on airborne transmission in hospital setting. Recommendations for maintaining and improving hospital ventilation while minimizing airborne transmission were summarized. Future research directions were also proposed and discussed to provide insights into developing more comprehensive and realistic CFD for airborne transmission in hospitals.
KW - Computational simulations
KW - Hospital ventilation
KW - Infection risk
KW - Layout
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85142169404&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jobe.2022.105533
DO - 10.1016/j.jobe.2022.105533
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85142169404
SN - 2352-7102
VL - 63
JO - Journal of Building Engineering
JF - Journal of Building Engineering
IS - A
M1 - 105533
ER -