Thermal comfort of the surgical staff in an operating theatre: a numerical study on laminar and mixing ventilation systems

The indoor air quality in an operating theatre affects both patient health and the well-being of the surgical team members. Health care facilities, and operating theatres in particular, require ventilation and air conditioning for thermal comfort and removal of contaminants. Although the patient undergoing surgery is given the highest priority, it is important to consider the comfort of surgical staff, as it has a direct influence on their work quality and thus on the patient. This paper presents a numerical analysis for thermal comfort in a hospital operating theater, as based on the Predicted Mean Vote index. The room model includes a patient and five surgical staff members. Two types of ventilation systems, that is, mixing and laminar airflow were considered. Computational fluid dynamics was used to predict airflow, heat transfer, and thermal comfort. The predicted mean vote and dissatisfaction percentage were calculated for surgical staff thermal comfort. Results indicated that mixing ventilation might slightly improve thermal comfort, by reducing the temperature difference between the head and ankle levels.