Computational Modeling of Particulate Pollutant Transport in a Ventilated Room in the Presence of Two Heated Breathing and Rotating Manikins

Recently, attention has been given to indoor air quality due to its serious health concerns. Clearly the dispersion of pollutant is directly affected by the airflow patterns. The airflow in indoor environment is the results of a combination of several factors. In the present study, the effects of thermal plume and respiration on the indoor air quality in a ventilated cubicle were investigated using an unsteady computational modeling approach. The person-to-person contaminant transports in a ventilated room with mixing and displacement ventilation systems were studied. The effects of rotational motion of the heated manikins were also analyzed. Simulation results showed that in the cases which rotational motion was included, the human thermal plume and associated particle transport were significantly distorted. The distortion was more noticeable for the displacement ventilation system. Also it was found that the displacement ventilation system lowered the risk of person-to-person transmission in an office space in comparison with the mixing ventilation system. On the other hand the mixing system was shown to be more effective compared to the displacement ventilation in removing the particles and pollutant that entered the room through the inlet air diffuser.