Turbulence dictates the fate of virus-containing liquid droplets in violent expiratory events

Marco E. Rosti, Mattia Cavaiola, Stefano Olivieri, Agnese Seminara, Andrea Mazzino

Published 2020-08-12Version 1

Violent expiratory events, such as coughing and sneezing, are highly nontrivial examples of two-phase mixture of liquid droplets dispersed into an unsteady humid turbulent fluid phase. Understanding the physical mechanisms determining the fate of droplets is becoming a priority given the global COVID-19 emergency caused by the SARS-CoV-2 infection. By means of state-of-the-art fully resolved direct numerical simulations we contribute to solve this issue by identifying the key role of turbulence on the fate of exhaled droplets. Our results impact the current notion of social distance.