Transport and evaporation of virus-containing droplets exhaled by men and women in typical cough events Articles uri icon

authors

  • OLIVIERI, STEFANO
  • CAVAIOLA, MATTIA
  • MAZZINO, ANDREA
  • ROSTI, MARCO E.

publication date

  • January 2022

start page

  • 567

end page

  • 575

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0025-6455

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1572-9648

abstract

  • The spreading of the virus-containing droplets exhaled during respiratory events, e.g., cough, is an issue of paramount importance for the prevention of many infections such as COVID-19. According to the scientific literature, remarkable differences can be ascribed to several parameters that govern such complex and multiphysical problem. Among these, a particular influence appears associated with the different airflows typical of male and female subjects. Focusing on a typical cough event, we investigate this aspect by means of highly-resolved direct numerical simulations of the turbulent airflow in combination with a comprehensive Lagrangian particle tracking model for the droplet motion and evaporation. We observe and quantify major differences between the case of male and female subjects, both in terms of the droplet final reach and evaporation time. Our results can be associated with the different characteristics in the released airflow and thus confirm the influence of the subject gender (or other physical properties providing different exhalation profiles) on both short-range and long-range airborne transmission

subjects

  • Biology and Biomedicine

keywords

  • airborne transmission; virus-containing droplets; direct numerical simulation