Decay of Airborne Contamination and Ventilation Effectiveness of Cleanrooms

This paper reports an investigation into the ability of the air supply in non-unidirectional cleanrooms to aid recovery from episodes of airborne contamination, and minimise airborne contamination at important locations. The ISO 14644-3 (2005) recovery test, which measures the rate of decay of test particles, was assessed and a reinterpretation of the test results suggested. This allowed air change effectiveness indices to be calculated and used to evaluate the ventilation effectiveness of the cleanroom’s air supply.