Abstract:
Difficulties in conducting studies in the passenger aircraft cabin environment during flight led to the decision that work be done using realistic cabin mock-ups and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to understand the behavior of any air contaminants present. In an effort to pull immediately useful information from the detailed, high-quality studies done to date, a simple model and a modeling framework are presented here. The general aircraft-cabin air-contaminant transport effect (GAATE) model seeks to build exposure–spatial relationships between contaminant sources and receptors, quantify the uncertainty, and provide a platform for incorporating future studies. The goal of the GAATE model is to provide useful information to authorities for addressing exposure incidents involving SARS, avian flu, H1N1, and other potentially lethal agents and to provide guidance to emergency response personnel.
