Predicting indoor pollutant concentrations, and applications to air quality management
- LBNL Library
Because most people spend more than 90% of their time indoors, predicting exposure to airborne pollutants requires models that incorporate the effect of buildings. Buildings affect the exposure of their occupants in a number of ways, both by design (for example, filters in ventilation systems remove particles) and incidentally (for example, sorption on walls can reduce peak concentrations, but prolong exposure to semivolatile organic compounds). Furthermore, building materials and occupant activities can generate pollutants. Indoor air quality depends not only on outdoor air quality, but also on the design, maintenance, and use of the building. For example, ''sick building'' symptoms such as respiratory problems and headaches have been related to the presence of air-conditioning systems, to carpeting, to low ventilation rates, and to high occupant density (1). The physical processes of interest apply even in simple structures such as homes. Indoor air quality models simulate the processes, such as ventilation and filtration, that control pollutant concentrations in a building. Section 2 describes the modeling approach, and the important transport processes in buildings. Because advection usually dominates among the transport processes, Sections 3 and 4 describe methods for predicting airflows. The concluding section summarizes the application of these models.
- Research Organization:
- Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Office of Nonproliferation Research and Engineering, Chemical and Biological National Security Program, of the National Nuclear Security Administration (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00098
- OSTI ID:
- 816066
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL--51582
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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