EKOS

Spread of airborne pathogens in hospitals and ventilation solutions.

The subproject EKOS is part of the interdisciplinary strategy concept “InfectControl 2020” and has the goal to ensure a safe infectiological-medical care of highly contagious patients in hospitals.

One of the pursued key objectives is to develop a safe ventilation concept as well as a calculation method to determine the local pathogen load and the resulting hazard potential.

In the first step the spread behaviour of airborne pathogens is investigated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in different rooms and scenarios. Once the most influencing parameters are identified, a functional relationship between these and the spread of the airborne pathogens is

searched for. The influence of different ventilation strategies, particle properties, emission parameters, person movement as well as pressure cascades between rooms is studied. Then, also biological properties of the pathogens like age and viability are took into account, which are provided by the associates. With this data a calculation method is developed.

Funding / Associates

Project termNovember 2016 to October 2019
Funding code03ZZ0817E
Project managementEugen Lichtner