Teague has unveiled a germ isolation concept that adapts aircraft cabin airflow to prevent the spread of viruses.
Provisioned by the airline rather than relying on the passenger, AirShield provides an invisible, effective, and consistent additional line of defense against viral transmission in the cabin.
AirShield is a single 3D-printed component that fits directly onto the Passenger Service Unit (PSU) positioned above every passenger in the cabin. By utilising the airflow from the existing overhead air-gaspers, AirShield transforms freshly purified air into engineered ‘air-blades’ capable of controlling the spread of droplets much more effectively – offering passengers and crew improved protection and peace of mind. As a result, when a passenger breathes, coughs, or sneezes, the water vapor droplets are contained within that passenger’s space and immediately re-directed downwards and out of the cabin to the HEPA filtration units, before they have the opportunity to enter the personal space of a neighbouring passenger.
The curved shape of the blades is designed to maximise the efficiency of the existing system and create protection between neighbouring passengers as well as row-to-row. Additionally, the air blade is positioned around, versus on, the passenger so as not to cause discomfort or irritation.
To better understand how germs travel in the aircraft cabin, Teague initiated a series of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to evaluate various aspects of particulate movement in the cabin environment. The initial results demonstrate the potential to re-direct the spread of exhaled respiratory particles from passengers.
“In an aircraft environment, it is airflow and not the distance that plays the most significant role in the spread of a virus. By engineering the cabin airflow to manage each individual’s exhalations, passengers can have far greater peace of mind when seated nearby,” said Anthony Harcup, Senior Director of Airline Experience at Teague, who co-invented AirShield. “For many airlines, it is simply not commercially viable to reconfigure entire cabins to adhere to social distancing measures – especially in economy class where passenger density is at its highest. A reconfigured interior would also not guarantee passengers the same level of protection from infectious droplets traveling through the cabin when compared to AirShield.”
The AirShield concept is now entering its engineering development phase in anticipation of rapid deployment to help restore confidence in air travel during a time of increasing uncertainty.
