Prediction of the spread of Corona-virus carrying droplets in a bus - A computational based artificial intelligence approach

Highlights: • A combined CFD and AI approach for predicting the spread of sneezing droplets in a bus. • Realistic modelling of droplets formation and spread during sneezing. • Reduction of the computational burden by a factor of 100 by employing AI. • The combined approach can be used in practical risk assessments. • Droplets with diameters less than 250 micrometres are most likely to transmit the virus. Public transport has been identified as high risk as the corona-virus carrying droplets generated by the infected passengers could be distributed to other passengers. Therefore, predicting the patterns of droplet spreading in public transport environment is of primary importance. This paper puts forward a novel computational and artificial intelligence (AI) framework for fast prediction of the spread of droplets produced by a sneezing passenger in a bus. The formation of droplets of salvia is numerically modelled using a volume of fluid methodology applied to the mouth and lips of an infected person during the sneezing process. This is followed by a large eddy simulation of the resultant two phase flow in the vicinity of the person while the effects of droplet evaporation and ventilation in the bus are considered. The results are subsequently fed to an AI tool that employs deep learning to predict the distribution of droplets in the entire volume of the bus. This combined framework is two orders of magnitude faster than the pure computational approach. It is shown that the droplets with diameters less than 250 micrometers are most responsible for the transmission of the virus, as they can travel the entire length of the bus.