Numerical study of temperature-controlled airflow in comparison with turbulent mixing and laminar airflow for operating room ventilation

Operating room (OR) ventilation is crucial for reducing airborne bacteria-carrying particles (BCPs) concentration and thus preventing post-operative infections. A variety of ventilation schemes have been introduced to ORs. This study explores the effectiveness of a newly developed ventilation scheme, temperature-controlled airflow (TAF), with respect to reducing BCPs distribution and sedimentation in an OR. Comparisons are made with the conventional turbulent mixing and laminar airflow (LAF) ventilation. The study is conducted using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Lagrangian particle tracking (LPT), with numerical models validated against literature data. The results reveal that TAF represents reliable and effective ventilation and can serve as an energy-efficient alternative to the LAF systems. The results also show that increasing ventilation rates alone will not always result in better control of BCPs distribution. Airflow patterns play an important role in removing and diluting airborne BCPs, so a specific analysis is necessary to each design of OR ventilation.