SyracuseCoE recently hosted a Research & Technology Forum featuring Guangyu Cao, Professor in the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment. Held on July 9, this R&T Forum presented Professor Cao’s research on ventilation systems in healthcare settings.
Hospital facilities, and specifically operating rooms (ORs), require strict environmental control to protect both patients and healthcare workers. Professor Cao’s presentation explored some of the key questions related to ventilation in these settings, including:
- How do surgical facilities affect laminar airflow?
- What is the best method of airflow distribution in ORs?
- How do human activities affect colony-forming units (CFUs) in ORs?
- What exposure risks do different ventilation strategies present?
Cao presented several case studies conducted at St. Olav’s University Hospital in Trondheim, Norway. In one experiment, his team tested different types of clothing and personal protective equipment for OR surgeons and other healthcare staff. In another, they compared laminar airflow and mixing ventilation to see how they performed in distributing air throughout an OR. Other studies looked at zone ventilation, contamination spread, hypothermia risk, and surgical staff movement. Cao and his fellow researchers identified a number of factors that can influence the microenvironment of an operating theatre and found that optimizing airflow distribution can lead to both better indoor air quality and improved thermal comfort.
RELATED RESEARCH
- Bi, Y., Hu, N., Sadeghian, P., Sadrizadeh, S., Asuero Von Munthe Af Morgenstierne, M., Mathisen, H. M., Larkermani, E., Georges, L., & Cao, G. (2025). Numerical study on the application of low-turbulence air curtain surrounding laminar airflow distribution in operating rooms. Building Simulation, 18(3), 601–617. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-024-1229-7
- Sadeghian, P., Bi, Y., Cao, G., & Sadrizadeh, S. (2022). Reducing the risk of viral contamination during the coronavirus pandemic by using a protective curtain in the operating room. Patient Safety in Surgery, 16(1), 26. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13037-022-00332-x
- Cao, G., Pedersen, C., Zhang, Y., Drangsholt, F., Radtke, A., Langvatn, H., Stenstad, L.-I., Mathisen, H. M., & Skogås, J. G. (2022). Can clothing systems and human activity in operating rooms with mixed flow ventilation systems help achieve the ultraclean air requirement (≤10 CFU/m3) during orthopaedic surgeries? Journal of Hospital Infection, 120, 110–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2021.11.005
PRESENTATION:
Slides from this R&T Forum are available below.
SPEAKER:
Guangyu Cao is a Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and currently a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his Ph.D. in 2009 from Helsinki University of Technology.
From 2009 to 2014, Dr. Cao worked as a Senior Scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, focusing on ventilation, energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality. Between 2013 and 2014, he spent a year as a visiting scholar at the University of Texas at Austin. Since October 2014, he has served as a professor in the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at NTNU.
Dr. Cao’s research interests include ventilation, indoor airflow distribution, thermal comfort, indoor air quality, built environment quality and protected zone ventilation. He has published over 150 scientific articles on ventilation, airflow distribution, indoor air quality and energy efficiency of building systems in leading international journals and at national and international conferences. He has also contributed to the academic community by serving as a reviewer, session chair and paper/poster evaluator for various international conferences. Notably, he was Vice President of the Healthy Buildings Europe Conference in Norway (2021) and the Ventilation Conference in Finland (2018).
For the past eight years, Dr. Cao has been an active member of REHVA (Federation of European Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Associations), serving as Co-Chair of the External Relations Committee, Co-Chair of the Publishing and Marketing Committee and a core member and Co-Chair of the Technical and Research Committee. In recent years, he has also represented Norway in the European Standards Working Group CEN TC156 WG18 on ventilation in hospitals. Since 2019, Dr. Cao has been an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Building Engineering. Additionally, since 2023, he has been a member of SN/K 100, Standard Norway’s committee focusing on indoor air quality and ventilation.