Automated Indoor Infection Detection and Control
Healthy Living Environment - Reduce Indoor Infection Risk
Viruses spread quickly in crowded indoor areas. Ventilation systems, which impact flow movement, can limit viral transmission in indoor environments to create safe spaces for patients, personnel, and visitors. To more correctly measure infection risks, a new metric that considers the amount of virus particles transmitted and the time of exposure will be devised. This creates a infection probability map for the full flow domain in Computational Fluid Dynamics.
Innovation
Sensors will be developed and used to record infection metrics which will serve as an input into a BMS/control to automatically adjust the ventilation system flow rate and mitigate the infection risk in indoor environments. To make rational use of energy, the ventilation rate can then be reduced when the spaces are only partially occupied and low infection risk exists and vice versa. This technology will offer great potential for both new as well as retrofit projects.
Applications
The potential for savings is substantial, especially in premises such as offices, classrooms, hotel rooms, hospitals where there is considerable variation between high and low during times when there are few or no occupants.
