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EVALUATION OF VENTILATION EFFECTIVENESS USING AN IAQ MODEL
Citation:
Yamamoto, T., D. Ensor, AND L. Sparks. EVALUATION OF VENTILATION EFFECTIVENESS USING AN IAQ MODEL. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/A-93/060.
Description:
The paper discusses an evaluation of ventilation effectiveness, using a new ventilation solver that can determine the distributions of a time-averaged flow field, the effective turbulent diffusion coefficient, and the steady-state or time-dependent contaminant concentration distribution within isothermal indoor space. The model was written for a personal computer (PC), and the computational speed is extremely fast (a few minutes) with reasonable accuracy so that engineers can use it as a tool to evaluate ventilation performance in indoor space yet to be built. Ventilation performance depends on room geometry; the ventilation method; operating conditions; and location, strength, and types of contaminants. Case studies were performed using a user-friendly indoor air quality (IAQ) model. Ventilation performance was evaluated using three proposed new scales called Ventilation Performance Indices (VPIs): average contaminant concentration or decay rate (VPIl), average contaminant diffusion coefficient (VPI2), and average contaminant concentration or decay rate at the breathing level (VPI3).