Performance investigation for the cleanroom contamination control strategy in an operating room

Operating rooms are increasingly turning to contamination control by cleanroom technology for the infectious control. This study presents the numerical approach and field testing investigation on performance improvement for a hospital operating room with less expenditure. Variable speed driven strategy has been performed to verify the potential of energy-saving opportunity under contamination standards that it has been designed to fulfill. A physical partition curtain has been conducted around the high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter of an operating room to validate the improvement of air flow distribution and contamination control. Both numerical simulation and field measurement of a full-scale operating room have been carried out at a district hospital in Taiwan. The results from computer simulation revealed that the reduction of face veloctity is feasible and improvement of airflow could be achieved satisfactorily by application of a physical partition curtain. Optimal face velocity of HEPA filter could be obtained through compromising of contamination control and energy consumption as well. Simulation results have been validated by comparison with the field tests data of both particle counts and microbial counts.