UTSA study shows airborne coronavirus particles could travel more than a mile

[Mary Wilson]

Garrett Brnger, Robert Samarron

Published: September 29, 2020, 7:50 pm

Study does not show for how long the plumes of virus particles could remain concentrated enough to infect someone.

SAN ANTONIO – Airborne coronavirus particles could travel for more than a mile, depending on weather conditions, according to a new study authored by a UTSA associate professor of mechanical engineering.

The peer-reviewed study, authored by Kiran Bhaganagar and her graduate student, Sudheer Bhimireddy, used meteorological data from New York City in March and April to run computer simulations on how the weather patterns would affect the airborne plumes of virus particles -- hundreds of thousands of which could be expelled in a single cough.

The UTSA study is expected to be published in the December issue of the journal Environmental Research. It was funded through a grant from NASA MIRO Center for Advanced Measurements in Extreme Environments.

https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020...e-than-a-mile/

 

[Mary Wilson]

(peer-reviewed study mentioned in above post)

Local atmospheric factors that enhance air-borne dispersion of coronavirus - High-fidelity numerical simulation of COVID19 case study in real-time

Environmental Research
Volume 191, December 2020, 110170

KiranBhaganagar
SudheerBhimireddy

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas, San Antonio, TX, 78248, USA
Received 15 July 2020, Revised 6 September 2020, Accepted 7 September 2020, Available online 17 September 2020.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.110170

Abstract

The spatial patterns of the spreading of the COVID19 indicate the possibility of airborne transmission of the coronavirus. As the cough-jet of an infected person is ejected as a plume of infected viral aerosols into the atmosphere, the conditions in the local atmospheric boundary layer together dictate the fate of the infected plume. For the first time - a high-fidelity numerical simulation study - using Weather-Research-Forecast model coupled with the Lagrangian Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model (WRF-HYSPLIT) model has been conducted to track the infected aerosol plume in real-time during March 9-April 6, 2020, in New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus in the USA for comparing the morning, afternoon and evening release. Atmospheric stability regimes that result in low wind speeds, low level turbulence and cool moist ground conditions favor the transmission of the disease through turbulence energy-containing large-scale horizontal “rolls” and vertical thermal “updrafts” and “downdrafts”. Further, the wind direction is an important factor that dictates the direction of the transport. From the initial time of release, the virus can spread up to 30 min in the air, covering a 200-m radius at a time, moving 1–2 km from the original source.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935120310677?via=ihub