Comparison of direct and indirect determinations of dynamic ventilation rate in a modern dairy free stall barn

Reliable estimation of the ventilation rate(VR)in intensive livestock buildings is necessary for studying building environmental control strategies and predicting indoor air quality and air emissions.As direct air exchange measurements are time-consuming and expensive,it is environmentally inefficient to measure livestock building VR continuously in practice.Hence,indirect VR estimation methods have been widely used in modelling environmental control and air emissions,and also to measure airflow in the field.The accuracy of indirect measurement methods needs to be evaluated by comparing with direct measurements.In this study,the direct and indirect methods of determining hourly and daily mean VRs were applied to a mechanically-ventilated dairy free stall barn monitored by the 24-month National Air Emissions Monitoring Study.The direct method was used to continuously monitor fan rotational speeds,and differential static pressures,coupled with periodic in-situ fan performance assessments,to calculate the VR.The indirect method consisted of estimating the VR using CO2 concentration measurements and the CO2 mass balance method.The average daily and hourly means(mean±SD)of directly measured barn ventilation rates for two years were(246±73)m3/s and(245±77)m3/s,respectively.The average daily and hourly means(mean±SD)of barn ventilation rates estimated by the CO2 mass balance method were(287±93.4)m3/s and(287±118)m3/s,respectively.Correlation analyses showed a strong correlation between the indirect CO2 mass balance method and direct measurement methods(r=0.93 for daily means and r=0.85 for hourly means).

Effect of Digested Sewage Sludge on the Ventilation and Coughing Rates of Two Fresh Water Fish

Addition of digested sewage sludge at concentrations of 2% and 10% (v/v) to the water increased coughing rate in big head and tilapia (P<0.05). Ventilation rate was significantly decreased (P<0.05) in big head and tilapia at sludge concentrations of 6% and 2% (v/v)respectively. Copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd) and zinc (Zn) are trace metals which are commonly found in sludge. Cu caused a significant increase (P<0.05) in coughing rate in both tilapia and big head at concentrations of 0.3 and 0.2 μg/ml respectively. Zn caused significant increase (P<0.05) in coughing rate only in big head at 2 μg/ml. Neither fish responded to Cd of up to 2μg/ml in the water. However, when the levels of these trace metals in the digested sludge were measured, they were below that which can cause significant changes in the respiratory movements. Therefore, the changes in ventilation and coughing rates after addition of sludge may be due to the presence of substances other than these metals. The results of this experiment provides a guideline to control the level of sludge that can be used in rearing these fresh water fish in ponds

Carbon dioxide levels and ventilation for running vehicle

Factors contributing to ventilation quantity of the vehicle are ventilation modes, cabin characteristics and vehicle speeds. CO2 levels were investigated under different speeds and ventilation modes. Four modes were selected： A： vent closed and fan shut, B： vent closed and fan started, C： vent opened and fan shut, D： vent opened and fan started. In vent closed modes, CO2 levels reached several thousands of ppm in few minutes at any speeds. For mode C, CO2 levels exceeded the guideline at low speeds 50 km/h, while it reduced below one at higher speeds 80 km/h. Fan has no significant impact on ventilation during vent closed. The ventilation efficiency in each mode increased with the speed raising. To determine the ventilation rate of running vehicle, the experiment was implemented by using CO2 emitted from driver and passengers as tracer gas. Ventilation rate for the different modes and speeds were calculated.

CFD simulation of pumping ventilation in a three-story isolated building with internal partitioning:Effects of partition widths,heights and locations

Pumping ventilation(PV),a special single-sided ventilation(SSV),has been certified as an effective strategy to improve the air exchange rate of SSV.However,most studies targeted on the single space,and few studies have been focused on the effect of internal partitioning on PV.This paper aims to evaluate the ventilation performance of PV influenced by different configurations of internal partitioning.Computational fluid dynamics(CFD)simulation was used to predict the flow fields and ventilation rates.The width(w/H),height(h/H)and location(d/H)are the three main internal partition parameters considered in this study.The simulation results showed that the total,mean and fluctuating ventilation rates all decrease with wider internal partitions.The normalized total ventilation rate decreases by 7.6%when w/H is increased from 50%to 75%.However,the reduction rate is only 0.23%between w/H=0 and 25%,and only 0.61%between w/H=25%and 50%.The ventilation rate is hardly reduced by increasing the partition width when w/H<50%,whereas greatly reduced by wider partition for w/H>50%.Increasing the partition height will reduce the mean ventilation rate but promote the fluctuating and total ventilation rate in some cases.An increase of total ventilation rate by 1.4%is observed from h/H=50%to 75%.The ventilation rate is larger when the internal partition is attached to the leeward or windward wall.The total,mean and fluctuating ventilation rates for d/H=50%are relatively higher than d/H=0 by 1.5%,3.1%and 0.8%,respectively.Hence the internal partition should be mounted attached to the windward wall so as to obtain the greatest pumping ventilation rate.The periodicity of pumping flow oscillation and pumping frequency are independent of the partition configurations.The peak power of pumping flow is the lowest for the widest internal partition and is negatively affected by the partition height,but it generally has a positive correlation with the distance between the partition and leeward wall.Present research will help to understand pumping ventilation mechanism in real buildings with internal partitioning and provide theoretical basis for developing unsteady natural ventilation technology in low-carbon buildings.

Influence of environmental conditions on airborne infection risk in ward

In order to study the influence of parameters on airborne transmitted diseases in a hospital ward,a pollutant decay equation and a Wells-Riley model are adopted to study the relationship between the airborne infection risk and the parameters such as the ventilation rate,the number of susceptible persons and the volume of the ward.The results show that the airborne infection risk can be reduced by increasing the ventilation rate.For two wards with the same air change per hour（ACH）but different volumes,the ventilation rate in a large room is higher than that in a small one.The number of the infected persons in the ward increases with the increase in the susceptible persons when the ACH is a constant.Therefore,the ventilation rate in the ward is not only estimated by the ACH but also related to the volume of the ward and the number of the susceptible persons.

Development of a Bayesian inference model for assessing ventilation condition based on CO_(2)meters in primary schools

Outdoor fresh air ventilation plays a significant role in reducing airborne transmission of diseases in indoor spaces.School classrooms are considerably challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic because of the increasing need for in-person education,untimely and incompleted vaccinations,high occupancy density,and uncertain ventilation conditions.Many schools started to use CO_(2)meters to indicate air quality,but how to interpret the data remains unclear.Many uncertainties are also involved,including manual readings,student numbers and schedules,uncertain CO_(2)generation rates,and variable indoor and ambient conditions.This study proposed a Bayesian inference approach with sensitivity analysis to understand CO_(2)readings in four primary schools by identifying uncertainties and calibrating key parameters.The outdoor ventilation rate,CO_(2)generation rate,and occupancy level were identified as the top sensitive parameters for indoor CO_(2)levels.The occupancy schedule becomes critical when the CO_(2)data are limited,whereas a 15-min measurement interval could capture dynamic CO_(2)profiles well even without the occupancy information.Hourly CO_(2)recording should be avoided because it failed to capture peak values and overestimated the ventilation rates.For the four primary school rooms,the calibrated ventilation rate with a 95%confidence level for fall condition is 1.96±0.31 ACH for Room#1(165 m^(3)and 20 occupancies)with mechanical ventilation,and for the rest of the naturally ventilated rooms,it is 0.40±0.08 ACH for Room#2(236 m^(3)and 21 occupancies),0.30±0.04 or 0.79±0.06 ACH depending on occupancy schedules for Room#3(236 m^(3)and 19 occupancies),0.40±0.32,0.48±0.37,0.72±0.39 ACH for Room#4(231 m^(3)and 8–9 occupancies)for three consecutive days.

THE WALL EFFECT ON VENTILATED CAVITATING FLOWS IN CLOSED CAVITATION TUNNELS

For ventilated cavitating flows in a closed water tunnel, the wall effect may exert an important influence on cavity shape and hydrodynamics, An isotropic mixture multiphase model was established to study the wall effect based on the RANS equations, coupled with a natural cavitation model and the RNG k-ε turbulent model. The governing equations were discretized using the finite volume method and solved by the Gauss-Seidel linear equation solver on the basis of a segregation algorithm. The algebraic multigrid approach was carried through to accelerate the convergence of solution. The steady ventilated cavitating flows in water tunnels of different diameter were simulated for a conceptual underwater vehicle model which had a disk cavitator. It is found that the choked cavitation number derived is close to the approximate solution of natural cavitating flow for a 3-D disk. The critical ventilation rate falls with decreasing diameter of the water tunnel. However, the cavity size and drag coeflicient are rising with the decrease in tunnel diameter for the same ventilation rate, and the cavity size will be much different in water tunnels of different diameter even for the same ventilated cavitation number.

Numerical investigation on effects of side curtain opening behavior on indoor climate of naturally ventilated dairy buildings

The side-curtain is popular in cattle buildings to regulate indoor climates and ventilation rates by adjusting the opening ratio.It normally had three different adjusting strategies relate to the position of rollers,i.e.central roller(S1),top roller(S2)and bottom roller(S3),which result in different opening behaviors to generate the same opening ratio but different opening positions in the side wall for a full-curtain house.Numerical simulations were conducted using computational fluid dynamics(CFD)to investigate the effects of the eight potential opening behaviors of side curtains on the indoor climates and airflow rates in winter for a typical naturally ventilated dairy house in China when the opening ratio were 8.5%and 17%.Airflow patterns,wind chilled temperature(WCT)and age of air were analyzed in the animal occupied zone(AOZ)by taking reference planes.Openings at the very bottom of side walls had more efficient ventilation due to the younger air age,more effective air disturbing,more uniformly distributed indicators in AOZ.However,it will result in a lower WCT in AOZ although a lower ventilation rate was observed in this case.Openings on the very top of side wall would generate a better thermal comfort in AOZ but with very poor air quality and nonuniformly distributed airflows in the dairy house.S1 was not recommended to the practical application due to the poor indoor climate and the higher cost of the mechanical structure.Based on the comprehensive evaluations of the analytic hierarchy process,the most satisfaction opening positions were at the bottom of the side curtains and the optimized adjusting strategy is S2.