With many businesses and schools in the United States now open post COVID-19, employers are faced with new challenges to keep the workplace safe for their employees, customers and students.
Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science have received a two-year $698,801 grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to test the effectiveness of various types of personal protection measures against airborne viral transmission. Building on their prior research, the project will result in experimentally verified computational strategies for mitigating airborne transmission of aerosolized droplets for a safe workplace environment.
Researchers will test and quantify the effectiveness of various protective measures under new American Society for Testing Materials standards and best safety practices in the workplace. They will evaluate facemasks and other personal protection equipment; physical safety barriers; interior designs of spaces; air filters, humidifiers; safe seating arrangements in a classroom setting and queuing at checkouts, as well as other measures.
“Employers are considering various protective measures in the workplace such as facemasks, placing safety barriers in offices and at workstations, reviewing ventilation/air conditioning systems in buildings, redesigning interior spaces as well as arranging safe queuing procedures at checkouts and other high-density environments,” said Manhar Dhanak, Ph.D., principal investigator, chair of FAU’s Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering, and professor and director of SeaTech. “With this CDC grant, we will conduct experimental simulation studies that will result in observations and analyses in support of social distancing and other preventative measures for mitigating airborne transmission of viral infections, which will be of particular interest to businesses, schools and the general public.”
