Performance Evaluation of Different Texture Material Masks to Reduce Airborne Infection

Fatma A-M. Kassem; Ahmed Farouk AbdelGawad; Mofreh M. Nassief; A. E. Abu El-Ezz; S.H. Samaha; Mohamed Adel

doi:10.37934/cfdl.15.7.175193

Authors

Fatma A-M. Kassem Department of Volume and Fluid Flow Metrology, National Institute of Standards (NIS), Giza, Egypt
Ahmed Farouk AbdelGawad Department of Mechanical Power Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Egypt
Mofreh M. Nassief Department of Mechanical Power Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Egypt
A. E. Abu El-Ezz Department of Force and Material Metrology, National Institute of Standards (NIS), Giza, Egypt
S.H. Samaha Materials Testing and Surface Chemical Analysis Metrology, National Institute of Standards (NIS), Egypt
Mohamed Adel Department of Mechanical Power Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Egypt

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37934/cfdl.15.7.175193

Keywords:

Mask, Air permeability, Porosity, Aerosol containment, Pore size, COVID-19

Abstract

At the end of 2019, the COVID-19 virus began to appear and quickly spread throughout the world. It transmits the infection to the respiratory tract by the transmission of pathogens within bioaerosols during speaking, coughing, and sneezing. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of aerosols plays an important role in developing mitigation strategies against droplet infections. Computational modeling, using fluid and computational dynamics, has become a useful feature in studying and visualizing the diffusion of micro-droplets that are difficult to reach using experimental methods. Through this study, the effects of using cloth face masks and social distancing, both recommended by the World Health Organization to the general public to avoid rapid transmission of COVID-19, were determined. This study made a comparison between different structural masks and the difference between social distancing with different porous masks at the droplet diameter during breathing from 0.5 µm to 2.5 µm. The results showed the effectiveness of wearing masks in reducing the risk of infection transmission. Also, with lower mask porosity, lower air permeability means higher filtration efficiency, trapping airborne particles more effectively, especially for small infection-carrying particle sizes, and, therefore, lowering the required social distancing. From the comparison, it is concluded that sample 6 has the highest efficiency of 82.9% compared to other samples (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), which have efficiencies of 77.1%, 77.1%, 74.3%, 80.0%, and 65.7%, respectively

Author Biography

Fatma A-M. Kassem, Department of Volume and Fluid Flow Metrology, National Institute of Standards (NIS), Giza, Egypt

fatmakassem5@gmail.com

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