The physics of virus transmission and proposal for controlling

• Main Author: Wan, Shi Yu
• Other Authors: Ho Shen Yong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Science::Physics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148242
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In recent years, infectious disease has been a leading cause of death worldwide and one of the more contagious modes of transmission is through the airborne route. Past research has found that respiratory aerosols can carry infectious pathogens and are able to remain airborne for up to hours due to their small size. Hence, this project aims to explore how we can decrease the airtime of aerosols using an external electric field. This project will serve as a preliminary feasibility check regarding using external electric field to decreases airtime of aerosols. In this project, we developed a simulation where water droplets are released into an air channel with an electrode in the middle of the channel. The size of the channel was varied and the voltage required by the electrode to prevent the droplets from leaving the channel was obtained. It was discovered that the voltage required increases at an increasing rate as the channel size increases. When the radius of the channel is 0.02m, 9500V is needed to prevent the droplets from leaving, but when the radius of the channel is decreased to 0.0025m, only 18V is required. Hence, a small channel works much more efficiently at trapping droplets. We have also discovered that for a channel with a radius of 0.075mm, only 1.5V is required to stop the droplets at a horizontal distance of approximately 0.017mm. This result was compared with the average thickness and pore size of a surgical mask and the results obtained appears to be feasible. Two other models with two and three electrodes respectively were also simulated, and it was found that a higher voltage is needed to attract the droplets for those two models. However, further research needs to be done before we can say that increasing the number of electrodes will decrease the channel’s efficiency.