Capture of aerosolized spores from air streams impinging onto fabrics

Autor: Brian K. Heimbuch, Kristian Donahue, Joseph D. Wander, Bruce Nielsen, William Wallace, Jeffery R. Owens, Erno Sajo, April E. Lumley
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Aerosol Science. 80:75-85
ISSN: 0021-8502
DOI: 10.1016/j.jaerosci.2014.10.010
Popis: The zero-volume airlock concept minimizes the volume of air in and transiting through the airlock by effusing air from the clean area through spaces between deformable air bladders. An individual transiting through the airlock into a shelter displaces the bladders and creates ephemeral regions of varying dimensions and air velocities, which affect deposition and reaerosolization of particles. Properties of the aerosols and bladder surfaces are also influences, so the airlock may be treated to shed or retain particles and possibly to promote decontamination of them; the uniform material determines the protection from or exposure to these particles that the wearer experiences. To initiate evolution of a predictive computational model for the deposition and disposition of airborne particles in an airlock, this study presents measurements of deposition rates of Bacillus atrophaeus spores, a common simulant for anthrax spores, on a variety of fabrics as a function of airspeed and angle of incidence at ~22 °C and ~55% RH in a laboratory-scale aerosol tunnel. A computational model using inert surface properties consistently underpredicted experimental results by a factor of 2–10, suggesting that the variation in results across the test panel can be exploited to generate empirical parameters that can be substituted into the model to improve its predictive capability. Factors and possible approaches to computational descriptions are considered.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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