HEALTHBOX-A MODULAR SOLUTION FOR EXPANDING HOSPITAL'S CAPACITIES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

新冠肺炎疫情的高涨已经在全球范围内造成了可怕的社会和经济影响。这场大流行及其随之而来的影响可能会对医疗基础设施构成一系列挑战，并可能成为加拿大的主要社会威胁。随着新冠肺炎阳性患者的激增，加拿大将要求在公共集会场所建立与新冠肺炎相关的野战医院。在这场大流行之后，越来越需要病人重症监护病房和感染隔离室，以保护卫生保健工作者和其他患者免受疾病侵袭。拟议的研究旨在开发一个框架，用于设计和构建临时医疗设施HealthBox，可以在加拿大各地共享和使用，以识别、采购和提供符合不断变化的治疗要求的模块化医疗设施，以对抗病毒。利用高保真计算流体力学(CFD)数值模型的优势，这项研究将跟踪并可视化患者咳嗽和打喷嚏过程中飞沫的传播，以促进模块化医疗设施的高效设计。将开发和分析不同Healthbox几何结构的详细有限元模型，以优化设计，使HealthBox更易于操作，更不容易受到操作干扰的影响。该项目结合了申请者的专业知识以及来自咨询和建筑行业的经验丰富的行业合作伙伴，将开发一种创新的方法来设计和构建符合规范的解决方案“Healthbox”，以应对此次疫情期间医疗保健空间的限制。拟议的解决方案不仅将为我们的加拿大卫生系统提供应对当前大流行及其突变波的指导方针，而且还将适用于除病毒以外的未来情况，如自然灾害(如洪水、飓风和地震)。

The upsurge of the COVID-19 pandemic has already created dreadful societal and economic impacts across the globe. This pandemic and its consequent effects will likely present a range of challenges to the healthcare infrastructure and could become a major societal threat in Canada. As the surge of COVID-19 positive patients is on the rise, Canada would require to set up COVID-19-related field hospitals in places of public assembly. In the wake of this pandemic, there is an increasing need for patient intensive care units and infection isolation rooms to protect health care workers and other patients from getting sick. The proposed research aims to develop a framework for designing and constructing temporary healthcare facilities, HealthBoxes, which can be shared and used across Canada to identify, procure, and deliver modular healthcare facilities that match the evolving treatment requirements to combat the virus. Using the advantages from high fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical models, this study will track and visualize the spread of droplets through patients' coughs and sneezes to facilitate an efficient design of modular healthcare facilities. Detailed finite element models of the different HealthBox geometry will be developed and analyzed to optimize the design and make the HealthBoxes easier to operate and less vulnerable to operational disturbances. Combining the expertise of the applicants along with the experienced industry partners from both consultant and construction industries, this project will develop an innovative approach to design and construct a code-compliant solution, "HealthBox", to combat the limitation of health care space during this pandemic. The proposed solution will not only provide guidelines for our Canadian Health system towards the current pandemic and its mutated waves, but it will also be useful for future circumstances other than viruses, such as natural disasters (e.g. floods, hurricanes and earthquakes).