Study On Operating Room Air Purification Effectiveness

Postoperative infection is very harmful to society, hospitals and patients. Thereare many sources and routes of infection and related factors in the typical operatingroom. Air purification can reduce postoperative infection rates to a significant degreefor some surgical procedures, for example, orthopedic joint replacement surgery andimplant surgery. Air distribution characteristics are correlated with air purificationeffects. Air purification effects of localized vertical air supply were assessed based onnumerical simulations and experiment studies.For at-rest clean operating room, comparison between the experimental data andnumerical result showed that the influence of turbulence intensity at perforated panelsupply opening on air velocity distribution in the occupied zone was not significant.At-rest and as-built tests were conducted to determine the difference ofcleanliness and depositing bacterial concentration between operating zone andsurrounding zone. It was found that there were no significant differences fordepositing bacterial concentration, and each zone could even meet the demand ofclass 100.Correlation analysis between operational test data and numerical results showedthat numerical simulations agreed well with experiments from qualitative analysis.Adopting numerical simulation method, the influence of the thermal plume onbacterial concentraton in surgical site was first studied in China. From energyefficiency and protecting key zone, recommended supply air velocity was given. And,air purification effects were compared between sheet falling to the ground and normalsheet for operating table.To increase the thermal comfort, nonuniformity vertical supply air unit with 2velocities was proposed. Furthermore, numerical results indicated that air purificationeffects were acceptable and reliable.