Should we use ceiling fans indoors to reduce the risk of transmission of infectious aerosols?

The effects of ceiling fans on the transmission of infectious aerosols remain poorly understood, leading to conflicting recommendations. We conducted repeated experiments in a well-controlled chamber with a typical mixing ventilation system at three different ventilation rates with and without ceiling fans. We evaluated airborne infection risks for short- and long-range transmission routes based on size-resolved tracer particles measured at various locations. We found that the mixing ventilation without fans only effectively diluted the airborne particle concentration for the long-range route but not for the short-range. By using ceiling fans to enhance air mixing, tracer particles were distributed more homogeneously throughout the room, leading to up to 77% reduction in short-range particle exposure while a slight increase of less than 14% in long-range exposure. Based on the dilution-based Wells-Riley model, the changes in particle concentration translated to a maximum 47% reduction i..., , , # Data from: Should we use ceiling fans indoors to reduce the risk of transmission of infectious aerosols?

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fqz612k0w](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fqz612k0w)

Authors: Jiayu Li, Sultan Zuraimi, Stefano Schiavon

Contact Information

```
Name: Jiayu Li

Institution: Center for the Built Environment, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Address: 390 Wurster Hall #1839, Berkeley CA 94720

Email: [e-mail]
```

Date of data collection: 2021-12-03 to 2022-01-13

## Description of the data and file structure

There are two main folders: `data` and `R`. `data` contains all the data files that have been used to generate the results in the work. `R` contains the R script files that are used to generate the results provided in the original work.

1. Files in `data`.
1. `raw_data.csv` contains raw data of tracer particle number concentration measured by the TSI OPS 3330 at different locations.
* `n_conc`: measured number concentration of the tr...