Numerical investigation of airborne infection risk in an elevator cabin under different ventilation designs.

This article investigates the impact of different heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system designs on the airborne transmission risk of SARS-CoV-2 within elevator cabins, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. The study evaluates multiple ventilation configurations—including mixing ventilation (MV), displacement ventilation (DV), and stratum ventilation (SV)—by analyzing aerosol concentration, particle removal efficiency, suppression effect, and infection risk probability in scenarios with varying passenger locations, capacities, and air change rates (ACH). Results indicate that the MV-7 design, featuring separated inlet and outlet ducts above each passenger, achieves the highest particle removal efficiency (up to 79.40%) and lowest infection risk, while stratum ventilation systems show poor performance with removal efficiencies below 5%. The findings emphasize that elevator capacity and ventilation rate significantly influence infection risk, and recommend selecting HVAC systems like MV-7 and DV-1 to mitigate airborne viral transmission in confined elevator spaces.