Effect of Aerosols on Hazardous Species Dispersion

Airborne hazardous species such as radioactive nuclides and viruses normally get transported through air by bulk convection and turbulent and laminar dispersion. In addition, their concentration is affected by the deposition onto different surfaces such as walls and floors. This paper studies the effect of aerosols, such as dust particles, on the dispersion of such species in air. Specifically, the attachment of nanometer sized hazardous materials onto the micron sized aerosols and the subsequent transport of the former by the latter is modelled and investigated using numerical methods. It involves a 3D, transient CFD based model to simulate the transport of the aerosols of different sizes. It is found that with normal aerosol particle concentration the dispersion pattern and hence the decay rate of the smaller sized particles mostly follows that of the larger sized aerosols.