AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Identifying Optimum Indoor Space Design and Ventilation System for Reducing Second-hand Exposure between Office Occupants
FIROZA OMAR, Shamia Hoque, USC
Abstract Number: 175 Working Group: Indoor Aerosols
Abstract The objective of this study is to identify the parameters in designing indoor space so as to ensure a healthy indoor environment and reduce second hand exposure. In the past the focus has been that the ventilation system will ensure ‘clean air’ for all occupants in an office space or in a school room through sufficient number of air changes. This process ensures continuous outdoor air introduction into indoor spaces but it has not eliminated ‘dead zones’ and while HVAC filters keep outdoor particles such as allergens out, indoor transmission from occupant to occupant through sneezing, coughing, smoking (if occurring) is not stopped. Also new sources of indoor air pollution are introduced such as the rising popularity of electronic cigarettes (EC) which emit aerosols such as propylene glycol, carbonyls, glycerol, nicotine, metal and silicate particles. This study investigates the velocity profile, trajectory and behavior of aerosols released in an office space from an occupant with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. An Eulerian – Langrangian framework is applied for the simulations of a three dimensional office room for multiple occupants. Large Eddy Simulation was applied to compute the airflow. Aerosols were modeled using the Lagrangian treatment. The particle movement pattern is analyzed for different outlet locations for multiple work space designs. The results were evaluated to determine the optimum space distribution in indoor work zones associated with the position of the outlet with the objective of minimizing second hand exposure. The results show that the air inlet and outlet locations and safe space distribution between the working zones can be useful to determine the most effective and healthy indoor layout without increasing building ventilation costs.