Study on impact factors of tracer gas method in investigations of gaseous pollutant transport and building ventilation

Building ventilation is essential to discharge indoor pollutants and improve indoor air quality for occupant health.Tracer gas method is an efficient way in the field of building ventilation to measure ventilation rate and to evaluate the ventilation performance.Literature shows notable deviation of measured ventilation rate using different tracer gases.In the present study,CFD simulations are carried out to analyze He-,CO_(2)-and SF_(6)-based tracer gas methods.The effects of tracer gas density and release rate on the concentration distribution and ventilation effectiveness are studied.Various application scenarios of different ventilation rates and airflow distribution forms are compared.The results show that the deviation of ventilation effectiveness evaluated by different tracer gases can be above 2-4 times,and the error is introduced by non-passive dispersion.Whether tracer gas dispersion is passive or not depends on the relative importance of density difference driven mass transfer to forced convection mass transfer,which is due to the combined effects of density difference,release rate,and indoor airflow velocity,and can be judged by a dimensionless number θ.Under the geometry and ventilation settings in the present study,the critical value of θ is 1.0 for the error range of 5%,and 2.0 for the error range of 10%.When θ is below the critical value,the gas transport is passive and dominated by the indoor ventilation airflow.A release of tracer gas with smaller release rate and smaller density difference into a stronger indoor airflow behaves more passive.Heavier tracer gas tends to significantly overestimate the performance of upper supply and lower exhaust ventilation,and lighter tracer gas aggravates the overestimation of the performance for lower supply and upper exhaust ventilation.In mechanical ventilation rooms with air change rate of 3.0-6.0 h^(−1),a continuous release of tracer gas SF_(6),CO_(2) or He with release rate above 8 mg/s or source concentration above 8-75 ppm should not be considered as passive.This work clarified the passive and non-passive transport characteristics and mechanisms of various tracer gases,which is helpful for the engineering applications of tracer gas method in building ventilation studies.

Numerical simulation to evaluate gas diffusion of turbulent flow in mine ventilation system

Tracer gas technique is a method to analyze the airflow path, measure the airflow quantity, and detect any recirculation or leakages in underground mine. In addition, it is also possible to evaluate the axial gas diffusion of gas in turbulent bulk flow by utilizing the tracer gas data. This paper discussed about the measurement using tracer gas technique in Cibaliung Underground Mine, Indonesia and the evaluation of effective axial diffusion coefficient, E, by numerical simulation. In addition, a scheme to treat network flow in mine ventilation system was also proposed. The effective axial diffusion coefficient for each airway was evaluated based on Taylor's theoretical equation. It is found that the evaluated diffusion coefficient agrees well with Taylor's equation by considering that the wall friction factor, f, is higher than those for smooth pipe flow. It also shows that the value of effective diffusion coefficient can be inherently determined and the value is constant when matching with other measurements. Furthermore, there are possibilities to utilize the tracer gas measurement data to evaluate the airway friction factors.

Local and Whole Ventilation of Rainwear with Different Aperture Designs

Aperture design is very important in the design process of rainwear,as garment aperture is one of the main pathways for air exchange between clothing microclimate and the environment.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of aperture design on whole and local ventilations of rainwear.Ventilation was measured by a tester developed based on the steady-state method.A rainwear suit with top and bottom was chosen as the basic ensemble.Apertures were added at the arm,chest,back and knee separately.Local ventilation of the arm,chest,back and whole ventilation of the top and bottom in different walking and wind conditions were measured.Local and whole ventilations at five aperture conditions for the top and four for the bottom were studied.The results indicated that local ventilation value of the chest was the biggest and the arm was the smallest.Whole ventilation of the suit was the biggest when walking at 5.6 km/h,with all the designed apertures opened.Local ventilation value was bigger when opening arm aperture than that of opening chest or back aperture.The bottom ventilation was the highest when both front and back apertures were opened.

Research on air infiltration predictive models for residential building at different pressure

The pressure difference in buildings under natural state is usually below 10 Pa,and the air change rate at 50 Pa(ACHso)is often used to evaluate building airtightness.There is a dearth of research on air infiltration predictive model at different pressures in China.Moreover,the airflow coefficient(C),a key parameter for air infiltration,is necessary to determine ACHso.Based on prior experimental data,several methods including ordinary least squares(OLS),stepwise regression,partial least squares(PLS)and nonlinear fitting with independent variable screening methods,were employed to establish an airflow coefficient model.The determination coefficient(ft2)and the variation coefficient of the root-mean-square error(CV(RMSE))of these models were compared.The simulation results show that ft2 of the airflow coefficient models for apartments and villas increased by a maximum of 25.9%and 2.3%,respectively,using PLS method.The improvement with nonlinear fitting was weaker.Based on K-P model,a conversion model between ACHso and ACH4 was developed as an air infiltration predictive model under natural state.Blower door and tracer gas tests were conducted to verify the conversion model.The expected error was approximately 10%,which may be caused by measurement errors and shielding from surrounding obstructions.Further studies need to focus on obtaining more experimental data for building airtightness and developing a conversion model for high-rise residential buildings.