Mixing at the interface of the sneezing/coughing phenomena and its effect on viral loading Note: This paper is part of the special topic, Flow and the Virus

ABSTRACT

The primary objective of this work is to investigate the mixing of droplets/aerosols, which originates from the sneezing/coughing (of possibly COVID-19 patient) with the ambient atmosphere. Effectively, we are studying the growth/decay of droplets/aerosols in the presence of inhomogeneous mixing, which focuses on the phenomena of entrainment of the (relatively) dry ambient air. We have varied the initial standard deviation, mean radius of the droplets/aerosols size distribution, and humidity of the ambient atmosphere to understand their effects on the final size spectra of droplets. Furthermore, a rigorous error analysis is carried out to understand the relative importance of these effects on the final spectra of droplets/aerosols. We find that these are vital parameters to determine the final spectra of droplets, which govern the broadening of the size spectra. Typically, broadening the size spectra of droplets/aerosols increases the probability of the virus-laden droplets/aerosols and thus could affect the transmission of infection in the ambient atmosphere.