A Novel Approach of Angular Air Distribution System For Hospital Operation Theatre

The air distribution system in operation theatre (OT) is used to provide the conditioned air to achieve uniform cooling throughout the room with effective contamination removal. Most of the previous researchers used the vertical downward unidirectional air distribution system with a conventional flat diffuser which is less capable to provide better cooling and insufficient to carry bacterial contamination along the air flow. In this paper, a novel approach of angular air distribution system is implemented in which angular air stream is used for air distribution inside the OT. The design of angular air distribution system integrates straight and angular flow to cover the critical zone with surgeons and exhausted effectively through low sidewall grills. The main objective of this research is to demonstrate the advantage of angular air diffuser over traditional flat diffuser and to determine the best angle for angular air flow in terms of volume to be covered and turbulence energy. The exploration of air flow pattern inside the OT is performed numerically by varying the angle of air flow using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) method. The numerical results of designed angular air distribution system with variable air inlet angle are presented in term air diffusion performance index (ADPI) which is compared with existing literature and HVAC standards.