Modeling Of Indoor Contaminants Using CFD

ROY KING, Suresh Dhaniyala, Clarkson University

     Abstract Number: 345
     Working Group: Indoor Aerosols

Abstract
The quality of our indoor air depends on the outdoor air pollutants that are introduced and contribution of indoor pollutant sources. The fate of these pollutants is dependent on the losses of these particles in the space and the role of ventilation systems in moderating their concentrations. Our current approach to model indoor air quality is based on simple box models for mixing but quiescent flow for particle losses. The accuracy of these models in capturing air quality in real-world spaces must be established. Here, we use a combination of low-cost sensors and research-grade instruments to obtain CO2 and particle concentration data over two years in a real-world university classroom. The data is collected in the room as well as in the ventilation system. We then used information about number of students and ventilation filters along with a box model to predict indoor air quality over time and compared against experiments. The box model is seen to predict average behavior in the room but misses out in capturing some of the observed heterogeneity in particle fate characteristics. We then use Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) to model detailed flow characteristics in the room and combine simulations with particle tracking. The simulation results are then compared against real-world experiments. I will present details of the box and CFD models and discuss our experimental validation effort.