IIT Ropar decodes South Korean technique for Covid-19 mass screening

As the perfect example of industry – academia collaboration for finding a solution to contain the coronavirus epidemic, IIT Ropar in collaboration with Ansys India, has picked up the best practice from South Korea, which helped the Southeast Asian country beat the Covid-19, and created a framework that fits the Indian context.

“South Korea has been one of the countries that had the maximum number of Covid-19 tests with around 20,000 tests every day. They were able to do so with the help of modular setups such as negative pressure rooms. Once testing becomes cheaper, people will be less hesitant to get tested. To develop similar facility in India, we need to convert big halls into isolation wards, an exhaust fan, a central duct to let the contaminated air pass through the room and set up for high-temperature treatment of particles,” says Dhiraj K Mahajan, Associate Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Ropar, adding that the overall cost for per isolation ward would be around INR 1 lakh. “We have the know-how of the mass screening and are in touch with several stakeholders who can help us in deploying the Negative Pressure Rooms (NPRs) in several states across India but nationwide deployment is a must to contain the epidemic,” remarks Mahajan.

As the institute’s laboratories are closed down, the team gathered the voluntary support from Ansys, a US-based company that develops multiphysics engineering simulation software for product design, testing and operation for fool-proofing the simulations for NPRs.

Rafiq Somani, Area Vice President – India and South Asia Pacific, Ansys, informs that Negative Pressure Rooms are crucial in helping fight the war against Covid-19. They were extensively used in South Korea as isolation rooms for patients and as modular testing stations in cities. “This is what has helped them control Covid-19 fatality. We can do the same in India too. We, at Ansys, are happy to have been of help to IIT Ropar in designing these low cost, modular Negative Pressure Rooms with our CFD based modelling and design recommendations. These NPRs prevent contaminated air from escaping and have filtered exhausts to avoid spread of the virus. They can reduce the risk for health care staff and since they are modular, they can be built quickly. Thanks to Professor Dhiraj K Mahajan and his team at IIT Ropar and also to our very own application engineers at Ansys,” states Somani, pointing out that Ansys and its partners will be pleased to be of service to startups, MSMEs, PPEs, drug manufacturers, academia and researchers by helping them leverage technology to fight Covid-19.

Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank appreciated the IIT Ropar team for the invention in a tweet saying, “Congratulations to team @iitrpr led by Mr. Dhiraj K Mahajan for working out engineering aspects of Negative Pressure Rooms to create facilities for mass screening for Covid-19. It will help to contain the rapid spread of the virus.”