Effects of cough-jet on airflow and contaminant transport in an airliner cabin section

Abstract

The goals of this study were to investigate the effect of cough-jet on local airflow and contaminant transport in a typical cabin environment by using computational fluid dynamics. A fully occupied airliner cabin section was employed as the computational domain. Contaminants were released through coughing passengers from different locations inside the cabin. Numerical results in terms of contaminant transport characteristics were examined and compared. It can be concluded that cough-jet has significant effects on air flow in front of cough passenger in a short period of time. Also, it was found that, without considering the cough-jet model, the simulation results could not be a precise representation of the transport and distribution of cough-generated airborne contaminants.