Numerical evaluation of the operating room ventilation performance: Ultra-clean ventilation (ucv) systems

Abstract

Surgical Site Infection (SSI) is one of the most important infectious problems in hospitals, which may happen in 2.6% of all surgeries. According to the literature, the primary source of SSI is the (lakes released from the exposed skin of surgical staff or patients. It is well known that appropriate ventilation strategy is the most effective way to control bacteria-carrying airborne particles responsible for SSI. In this research, the effect of the most dominant design parameter, namely inlet air velocity, 011 the performance of Ultra-Clean Ventilation (UCV) systems is evaluated in detail using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (C'FD). The results showed an optimum value for the inlet air velocity, which was mainly due to formation of a thermal plume over the wound tissue. This thermal plume protected the wound from contaminants deposition like a shield and might lx-disturbed at too high inlet air velocity. In addition, the effect of critical factors including particle size, wound temperature, operating lights boundary condition, and existence of fixed and removable partitions on the optimum inlet air velocity was investigated and is extensively discussed in this article.