Performance Analysis of the Ventilation System for a Surgical Operating Room in Egypt: A Case Study of Mataria Teaching Hospital in Cairo

Abstract The Design of the ventilation system in a hospital operating room plays a very important role, not only in providing thermal comfort and hygienic environment for the patients or staff, but also to ensure the scavenging of any contaminants or airborne particles in the operating room theatre that might leak from outside to the operating room or emitting from patients’ infections. The present study focuses at airflow distribution, temperature, humidity and velocity profiles in a surgical operating room. An operating room inside the Mataria teaching hospital in Cairo (Egypt) has been chosen for the study. Numerical and experimental studies were carried out, where the room was ventilated through laminar flow diffuser system and 100% fresh air. The air was released by four outlet grills: two grills at a low level of the floor and two grills at a high level of the floor. In this work, two cases are investigated. In case I, the air outlets have been installed on one side of the room (which already exists in the hospital); and in Case II, the air outlets have been installed on two opposite sides (the suggested case). The results showed that the proposed modification (Case II) performed better distribution of ventilation than Case I. Therefore, it is recommended to install air outlets in two different side areas inside the room in order to avoid the accumulation of contaminants.