Author(s)

Megan L. Steele¹, Emily M. Spatz², George P. Lemmer², Jacob M. Denney², Jeremy M. Slagley², Casey W. Cooper², Robert M. Eninger³

¹Fenic, Ltd., Dayton, USA.
²Department of Systems Engineering and Management, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Montgomery County, USA.
³Air Force Materiel Command, Office of the Command Surgeon, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Montgomery County, USA.

Contaminated or infected patients present a risk of cross-contamination for emergency responders, attending medical personnel and medical facilities as they enter a treatment facility. The controlled conditions of an aerosol test chamber are required to examine factors of contamination, decontamination, and cross-contamination. This study presents the design, construction, and a method for characterizing an aerosol test chamber for a full-sized manikin on a standard North Atlantic Treaty Organization litter. The methodology combined air velocity measurements, aerosol particle counts and size distributions, and computational fluid dynamics modeling to describe the chamber’s performance in three dimensions. This detailed characterization facilitates future experimental design by predicting chamber performance for a variety of patient-focused research.

Test Chamber Characterization, Aerosol Generation, Exposure Chamber Design, Air Velocity Mapping, Spatial Variability, CFD Modeling, Patient Decontamination

Steele, M. , Spatz, E. , Lemmer, G. , Denney, J. , Slagley, J. , Cooper, C. and Eninger, R. (2023) Design and Characterization of an Aerosol Test Chamber for Emergency Response Patient Contamination Control Simulation and Research. Occupational Diseases and Environmental Medicine, 11, 78-96. doi: 10.4236/odem.2023.111005.