A review on the transmission of COVID-19 based on cough/sneeze/breath flows.

COVID-19 pandemic has recently had a dramatic impact on society. The understanding of the disease transmission is of high importance to limit its spread between humans. The spread of the virus in air strongly depends on the flow dynamics of the human airflows. It is, however, known that predicting the flow dynamics of the human airflows can be challenging due to different particles sizes and the turbulent aspect of the flow regime. It is thus recommended to present a deep analysis of different human airflows based on the existing experimental investigations. A validation of the existing numerical predictions of such flows would be of high interest to further develop the existing numerical model for different flow configurations. This paper presents a literature review of the experimental and numerical studies on human airflows, including sneezing, coughing and breathing. The dynamics of these airflows for different droplet sizes is discussed. The influence of other parameters, such as the viscosity and relative humidity, on the germs transmission is also presented. Finally, the efficacy of using a facemask in limiting the transmission of COVID-19 is investigated.

Experimental investigation into the effect of compliance of a mock aorta on cardiac performance.

Demand for heart transplants far exceeds supply of donated organs. This is attributed to the high percentage of donor hearts that are discarded and to the narrow six-hour time window currently available for transplantation. Ex-vivo heart perfusion (EVHP) provides the opportunity for resuscitation of damaged organs and extended transplantation time window by enabling functional assessment of the hearts in a near-physiologic state. Present work investigates the fluid mechanics of the ex-vivo flow loop and corresponding impact on cardiac performance. A mechanical flow loop is developed that is analogous to the region of the EVHP system that mimics in-vivo systemic circulation, including the body's largest and most compliant artery, the aorta. This investigation is focused on determining the effect of mock aortic tubing compliance on pump performance. A custom-made silicone mock aorta was developed to simulate a range of in-vivo conditions and a physiological flow was generated using a commercial ventricular assist device (VAD). Monitored parameters, including pressure, tube distension and downstream velocity, acquired using time-resolved particle imaging velocimetry (PIV), were applied to an unsteady Bernoulli analysis of the flow in a novel way to evaluate pump performance as a proxy for cardiac workload. When compared to the rigid case, the compliant mock aorta case demonstrated healthier physiologic pressure waveforms, steadier downstream flow and reduced energetic demands on the pump. These results provide experimental verification of Windkessel theory and support the need for a compliant mock aorta in the EVHP system.

Experimental investigation of Taylor-Couette-Poiseuille flow at low Taylor and Reynolds numbers.

Flow patterns of a Taylor-Couette-Poiseuille flow were studied at low axial Reynolds and rotational Taylor numbers (Re ≤ 10.5, Ta ≤ 319). The radius ratio of the inner and outer cylinders was 0.804 and the ratio of the length of the annulus to the gap width was 44.5. Complete map of the studied flow regimes was elaborated. The axial and azimuthal components of the wall shear rate γ were measured at the outer fixed cylinder using a three-segment electrodiffusion probe. The components of the wall shear rate of helices have never been measured in previous investigations. Spatio-temporal description of multiple flow patterns was obtained using flow visualizations and simultaneous measurements of wall shear rate components. The flow structures include Taylor vortices, helices winding in the same direction as the base flow or in the opposite direction, helices that were stagnant or moving in the axial direction, smooth or with superposed azimuthal waves, among others. The influence of different flow structures on the wall shear stress components is discussed with and without axial base flow. It was found that the wall shear stress is a function of Ta but no significant dependence on Re was observed for the studied flow regimes and that the mean wall shear stress increases with the number of azimuthal waves. It was also noted that the ED probes provide a more detailed information about flow patterns than torque measurements and visualizations described in the literature.