Airflow simulation has been used in a collaborative project to reduce the risk of virus spread within St. Francis Hospital in Marange-Silvange in northeastern France - the second most affected region of the country by IDOC-19. The project, part of the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab OPEN COVID-19 online community of Dassault Systèmes, is the latest to leverage the collective intelligence in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to quickly solve critical issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.
St. Francis Hospital needed to convert a floor into a COVID-19 patient care area and wanted to reduce the risk of virus spread within the hospital. Based on a 2D floor plan, the 3D modeling made it possible to reassemble the partitions and walls of the area in question, to quickly provide an idea of the hospital's current design. Dassault Systèmes' team of scientists and analysts used SIMULIA's computational fluid dynamics simulation applications to simulate different fields of air flow within the building, allowing hospital managers to understand how the corridors were important vectors of propagation and thus optimize the interior design.
The team has made assumptions about patient behavior, the impact of coughing, and the ventilation of the plant and air conditioning systems, including air leaks from windows and doors. It has studied different options by simulating reduced ventilation, as well as strategic window opening, to understand the impact of fresh air on airflow and the concentration of virus particles. During the project, using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, engineers have provided support and consultation and the medical community has provided observations. The hospital's technicians are conducting tests with sensory equipment from local industrial companies to validate the various simulations.
SIMULIA, widely used in the aerospace and automotive industry, has already played a key role in the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab OPEN COVID-19 community, supporting the design of personal protective equipment.
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