Overall, rapid mixing, dilution and removal limit exposure risk for aerosol contaminants at 1 and 3 μm in all tested seat sections of the Boeing 767 and Boeing 777 wide body aircraft. The maximum exposure in a nearby seat of 0.4614% of a characterized release, equates to a 99.54% reduction from an aerosolized source of contamination such as SARS-CoV-2. Looking further across the approximately 40 seats nearby the simulated infected patient there is average reduction maximum in the aft section of the 777, with exposure risk of 0.0124%, representing a 99.99% reduction. Importantly, this represents a single infectious point source, not a scenario with multiple infected passengers. Testing focused on aerosol transport and smaller 1 to 3 μm particulate.
…It was observed that the location of the release source was critical in affecting both the tracer concentration levels and its transport inside the aircraft cabin. When the release source was placed close to the exhaust, the overall tracer concentration was lower. In contrast, when the release source was located at the central seat, almost all of the seats in the front and back rows had a larger exposure risk. Both the transient tracer distributions from the contour maps and the C[F.sub.N] data showed the tracer gas (simulating the airborne pollutants) was laterally spread in the space before being flushed out of the cabin if the release source was centrally located. From this finding, one possible way to decrease the exposure risk of infectious diseases would be to move the release source from the center to the sides or from the back to the front seats. In This could be employed at some emergent situations, for example, an outbreak of the toxic chemicals or the airborne infectious diseases occurred, or the degradation products of the engine oil or hydraulic fluids accidentally entered the passenger cabin.
