Expiratory aerosol particle escape from surgical masks due to imperfect sealing

The dataset provided here is associated with the work "Expiratory aerosol particle escape from surgical masks due to imperfect sealing," by Cappa et al, currently available as a preprint at https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-142138/v1. This includes measurements made of the influence of surgical masks and leakage flows out the mask sides on the emission of micron-scale aerosols from various expiratory activities (coughing, speaking). The dataset provided here includes *.txt files exported from an Aerodynamic Particle Sizer that contain time-series of the abundance of particles, by size (in particles per second), measured in the breath of study participants across experiments wherein people were either talking or coughing. Also, *.txt files of the measured amplitude of the speech or coughing associated with these activities are provided. Data are provided for conditions when people were not wearing any masks or were wearing surgical masks. For wearing of surgical masks, data are provided for participants speaking or coughing while in various physical orientations with respect to the sampling instrument. Further details, including the file naming scheme, are provided in the associated Read Me file and the Usage Notes. All personally identifying information has been removed.

Methods
Experiment Description: Participants were asked to perform various expiratory activities (breathing, speaking, coughing) while wearing no mask or a mask or surgical mask). Study participants performed these activities in front of a funnel connected to an aerodynamic particle sizer (APS), which measured the size-dependent aerosol concentration. Size-dependent concentrations were measured every 1-second during the activities. Additionally, the intensity and duration of the talking and coughing activities were measured using a calibrated microphone. The APS was located in a HEPA-filtered laminar flow hood to reduce background counts to near zero. Participants performed activities in different orientations with respect to their position in front of the funnel. These included:

No mask: facing straight on, wearing no mask
Forward: facing straight on, wearing mask
Top: Head tilted downwards to have bridge of nose in front of funnel, wearing mask
Side: Head turned sideways to have edge of mask against cheek in front of funnel, wearing mask
Bottom: Head tilted upwards or above funnel to have chin area in front of funnel, wearing mask

Further details are provided in the associated manuscript (Cappa et al., submitted), currently available as a preprint here: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-142138/v1 with DOI 10.21203/rs.3.rs-142138/v1.