Influence of Human Activities on Airflow and Pollutant Distribution in the Waiting Area in a General Hospital

Abstract

Impacts of human activities on the indoor air quality of hospitals almost focus on operating theaters and isolation rooms. Few studies pay attention to the normal outpatient department such as waiting areas, where crowds always gather. By utilizing unsteady CFD simulation with SST k − ɛ model and dynamic mesh, this paper investigates how the human activities of the health-care worker (HCW) and patients influence the airflow and pollutant distribution in the waiting area of an outpatient department in a general hospital in Wuhan. The results indicate that wake flow caused by legs moving forward is obviously weaker than that of arms and body with the model of swinging arms and legs when compared to the simplified model of human walking. The swinging arms and legs can accelerate the wake flow velocity, even larger than the human moving speed. The attenuation of wake flow velocity is also rapid. The increase in the human moving speed can speed up the spread of the pollutants, but cannot change the pollutant concentration.