Dispersion of Infectious Aerosols Through Different Mechanical System in a Cardiac Intensive Care Unit

Respiratory tract infections can be associated with heating systems. They represent a major challenge for intensive cardiac units, with lethal clinical consequences. The aim of our study was to evaluate the airflow and airborne pathogen transport by two different heating systems in a cardiac intensive care unit. We analyzed the current existing heating system of the intensive care unit and the proposed one (HVAC). We used the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, with three turbulence models k-ε, SST-k-ω and RNG-k-ε for the existing and proposed heating system, and we demonstrated that the choice of a HVAC system allows an adequate thermal comfort and also an additional protection against the transmission of airborne infections, through an adequate maintenance.