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July 22, 2020
Quantum Composers offers a full series of digital delay pulse generators that can help to create precision timing and synchronization of systems. Many of these units are instrumental in acquiring imaging or laser triggering in the nanosecond or picosecond range. This can be critical for research that needs to capture a series of moments in time with advanced start stop cycles and exact spacing of the image capture.
In a recent study by Texas A&M University, a Quantum Composers Pulse Delay Generator was used to help photograph and map nasal spray patterns during an active sneeze. Tracking the exact trajectory of droplets through use of high speed imaging can create maps of the possible spread patterns and transmission areas. This information then allows the CDC and other health agencies to better inform the public as to how to best prevent the spread of the virus.
The Texas A&M Study Details
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread pattern continues to show that geographical barriers alone cannot contain a virus. Asymptomatic carriers play a critical role in the nature of this virus quickly escalating into a global pandemic. Asymptomatic carriers may transmit the virus unintentionally through sporadic sneezing. A novel Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach has been proposed with a realistic modeling of a human sneeze achieved by the combination of state-of-the-art experimental and numerical methods. This modeling approach may be suitable for future engineering analyses aimed at reshaping public spaces and common areas, with the main objective to accurately predict the spread of aerosol and droplets that may contain pathogens. This study shows that the biomechanics of a human sneeze, including complex muscle contractions and relaxations, can be accurately modeled by the angular head motion and the dynamic pressure response during sneezing. These have been considered as the human factors and were implemented in the CFD simulation by imposing a momentum source term to the coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian momentum equations. The momentum source was modeled by the measured dynamic pressure response in conjunction with the angular head motion. This approach eliminated the need to create an ad hoc set of inlet boundary conditions. With this proposed technique, it is easier to add multiple fixed and/or moving sources of sneezes in complex computational domains. Additionally, extensive sensitivity analyses based on different environmental conditions were performed, and their impact was described in terms of potential virus spread.