by Freedonia Industry Studies
January 22, 2021
The onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic spawned a wave of research and brought many issues to the forefront. Findings in the health sphere are among the most important, and will continue to fuel technological innovation for many years to come. The research being done today is fundamentally transforming our understanding of both viruses and their spread, and will leave us better prepared for future pandemics.
In the January 2021 issue of Science Advances, for instance, researchers from Brown and University of Massachusetts in the US published an article examining the spread of respiratory diseases in passenger cars. The researchers looked at “relative concentrations and residence times of a noninteracting, passive scalar—a proxy for infectious particles—being advected and diffused by turbulent airflows inside the cabin”. The goal of the research is to advance our understanding of how airflows in passenger cars impact virus spread, and reduce transmission risk. These findings have significant implications for many different aspects of passenger car design as well as related fields of research.
For manufacturers of cars, insights about airflows and the spread of viruses can lead to innovations in cabin design. In addition to reducing transmission risk, such modifications can also be used to improve air quality and increase comfort. Suppliers of filters for automotive applications will also benefit from a better understanding of cabin airflows, helping them to develop the next generation of filtration products. Such innovation is likely to also impact other consumer air filtration technologies.
For more information and discussion of opportunities, see The Freedonia Group’s extensive collection of off-the-shelf research, including Global Motor Vehicle Outlook and Global Filters. Freedonia Custom Research is also available for questions requiring tailored market intelligence.