Large-Eddy Simulations on Indoor/Outdoor Air Quality Relationship in an Isolated Urban Building
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 133, Issue 8
Abstract
The airflow, pollutant dispersion and penetration of outdoor pollutants indoor in an isolated urban building are investigated computationally. The computation involves solving the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations using large eddy simulations based on the Smagorinsky subgrid scale model. The simulations involve investigations of the phenomena of airflow and pollutant dispersion in both indoor and outdoor environments under different Reynolds numbers with distinct combinations of building height, floor height, and building width. Pollutants originate from outdoor, located at the datum level of the windward side of the building. The objective is to study how outdoor pollutants penetrate indoor and relate this pattern to different building geometric configurations. The gradual increase in Reynolds number significantly favors pollutant transportation into the indoor environment and thus eventually changes the indoor/outdoor (IO) air ratio. Moreover, the value of the IO air ratio is particularly found to be highly affected by building height due to the capability of climbing over and escaping from the roof of the building. Results also show that the IO air ratio is dependent on the position of the sampling, which has been ignored in many previous experimental works. The research work poses important questions of indoor air quality as well as field measurements of the IO parameter.
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Acknowledgments
This research is sponsored by Hong Kong Research Grants Council under Contract Number HKU-7102/03E. One of the writers (M.K.K.L.) is further funded by the Universitas 21 Fellowship for this research project.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 133 • Issue 8 • August 2007
Pages: 887 - 898
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Nov 28, 2005
Accepted: Sep 19, 2006
Published online: Aug 1, 2007
Published in print: Aug 2007
Notes
Note. Associate Editor: Nikolaos D. Katopodes
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