Comparative Evaluation of Four RANS Turbulence Models for Aerosol Dispersion from a Cough

The study of aerosol dispersion in indoor environments is essential to understanding and mitigating airborne virus transmission, such as SARS-CoV-2. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has emerged a valuable tool for investigating dispersion, providing an alternative costly experimental methods. In this study, we investigated the performance four (4) Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models predicting from human body coughing small, ventilated environment. We compared Standard, RNG, Realizable k-ϵ SST k- ω model using same boundary conditions. initially observed that horizontal distance coughed aerosols after 10.2s time was substantially shorter with standard other three k-ω model, realizable exhibit high degree similarity their patterns. Specifically, dispersed horizontally faster RNG models. conclusion, when qualitative data literature, our observations exclude turbulence. However, select most appropriate capturing cough flow dynamics, further detailed validation against both quantitative needed.