Kenneth Breuer — Page 2

arXiv2020

Airflows inside passenger cars and implications for airborne disease transmission

Transmission of highly infectious respiratory diseases, including SARS-CoV-2 are facilitated by the transport of tiny droplets and aerosols (harboring viruses, bacteria, etc.) that are breathed out by individuals and can remain suspended in air for extended periods of time in confined environments. A passenger car cabin represents one such situation in which there exists an elevated risk of pathogen transmission. Here we present results from numerical simulations of the potential routes of airborne transmission within a model car geometry, for a variety of ventilation configurations representing different combinations of open and closed windows. We estimate relative concentrations and residence times of a non-interacting, passive scalar -- a proxy for infectious pathogenic particles -- that are advected and diffused by the turbulent airflows inside the cabin. Our findings reveal that creating an airflow pattern that travels across the cabin, entering and existing farthest from the occupants can potentially reduce the transmission.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2017

Unsteady High-Lift Mechanisms from Heaving Flat Plate Simulations

Flapping animal flight is often modeled as a combined pitching and heaving motion in order to investigate the unsteady flow structures and resulting forces that could augment the animal's lift and propulsive capabilities. This work isolates the heaving motion of flapping flight in order to numerically investigate the flow physics at a Reynolds number of 40,000, a regime typical for large birds and bats and challenging to simulate due to the added complexity of laminar to turbulent transition in which boundary layer separation and reattachment are traditionally more difficult to predict. Periodic heaving of a thin flat plate at fixed angles of attacks of 1, 5, 9, 13, and 18 degrees are simulated using a large-eddy simulation (LES). The heaving motion significantly increases the average lift compared with the steady flow, and also surpasses the quasi-steady predictions due to the formation of a leading edge vortex (LEV) that persists well into the static stall region. The progression of the high-lift mechanisms throughout the heaving cycle is presented over the range of angles of attack. Lift enhancement compared with the equivalent steady state flow was found to be up to 17% greater, and up to 24% greater than that predicted by a quasi-steady analysis. For the range of kinematics explored it is found that maximum lift enhancement occurs at an angle of attack of 13 degrees, with a maximum lift coefficient of 2.1, a mean lift coefficient of 1.04.

physics.flu-dyn↗