Project Overview

To understand how effective such a measure limits the spread of Covid-19 virus, it is of critical importance to understand how droplets and particles would travel in a ventilated classroom. Air is pumped into the classroom through the inlet and is exhausted out of the classroom through the outlet. In an effort to study how airflow carries virus-infected droplets and other particles through the classroom space, a computational fluid dynamics analysis using ANSYS R21.1 is performed in one of the classrooms at UC San Diego. Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω model is utilized to more accurately capture the flow turbulence in the classroom. Inlet and outlet boundary properties, such as the hydraulic diameter and turbulent intensity, are determined from the provided specifications. To more accurately determine the motion of droplets and particles, a discrete phase model is employed. The analysis determined that the air conditioning vent system can reduce the spread of respiratory droplets in two ways: through directing the droplets away from the people inside the classroom, and through reducing the droplet residence time in the classroom by increasing evaporation rate as a result of the increased circulation velocity. This analysis confirmed the effectiveness of the air conditioning system in controlling the spread of respiratory droplets. Thus, air conditioning systems should be employed in more areas on campus in an effort to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.