The paper examines the efficiency of a local exhaust applied during an orthopaedic surgicaloperation. During operations performing hip replacements bone cement is sometimes applied to fasten the new metal hip to the existing thighbone, especially in case of elderly patients. The bone cement emits harmful VOCs that may influence the operating room personnel and the patient. A local exhaust is applied to reduce the VOC concentration in the operating room air, however, apparently without success.
Recent studies in Switzerland showed that in large non residential buildings, which can be compared for typology and ventilation needs, the consumption of electricity for mechanical ventilation can vary considerably from case to case. Moreover in such a building it represents a percentage not negligible of the whole consumption of electricity. We had a confirmation of that behaviour with a study we made during 1999-2000 on a set of eighty air treatment units of the Civic Hospital in Lugano (Southern Switzerland).
Protecting immune suppressed patients from construction generated airborne opportunisticinfectious agents is essential during their hospitalization. During modernization of thehospitals 32-bed bone marrow transplant unit (BMTU), an empty intensive care unit wasretrofitted to BMT ventilation criteria. Filtration, pressurization and room air exchangecriteria were required at 12/h. A condensate particle counter and a digitalpressure gauge were used to assess these criteria.
The ventilation system of a hospital operating theatre is designed to provide a comfortable andhealthy environment for the patient and the surgical team. A healthy environment can beachieved by minimizing the risk of contamination through an appropriate filtration and airdistribution scheme. The design and construction of operating theatres in Hong Kong,including the upgrading of the older ones, are based on the UK Health Building Notes andHealth Technical Memoranda.
There are several factors that affect the hygiene in the surgical operating theatres. The HVACairside system plays an important role to maintain the adequate hygiene level in the operatingtheatres. The present paper displays comparisons between different HVAC airside designs toassess their impact on the surgery staff and patient health and comfort. The present workutilizes a numerical modelling technique to predict local flow field characteristics, heattransfer and air distribution profiles.
The traditional ways of maintaining cleanliness, temperature and moisture level in anoperation theatre (OT) usually use larger HVAC system and keep both the heating andcooling functions operating at the same time. The temperature and moisture level are thusunder control at the cost of tremendous amount of wasted energy. Incorporating the HVACsystem with the newly developed secondary return air system, the system capacity can bereduced while the energy efficiency can be increased. In this paper, concepts of the secondaryreturn air system are described.
The objectives of the present work are to use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to studythe airflow pattern and to evaluate the effectiveness of the passive cooling design of theproposed Jurong General Hospital (JGH) using natural wind. The complex three-dimensionalCFD model is used to assess the environmental conditions at the deep podium inside the JGHcomplex with prevailing wind conditions in Singapore, corresponding to the monsoon(November-February) and hot (March-October) seasons.
In order to effectively control nosocomial infection 12 respiratory isolation rooms fortuberculosis patients in four hospitals have been built by the Energy & Resources Laboratories,Industry Technology Research Institute in Taiwan. This project was funded by the Center ofDisease Control of the Health Department. The performance of the air-conditioning andventilation/exhaust system of respiratory isolation rooms has been tested and validated. Thetested items include ventilation rate, static pressure, temperature, humidity and noise.
This paper reviews the previous attempts to evaluate the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ),investigates previously proposed IAQ factors and analyses the evaluation methods of thesefactors. The present work also introduces a new hypothesis of the optimum HVAC airsidesystem design of the surgical operating theatres to achieve the comfort and hygiene levels.The present work is devoted to propose and formulate a new scale capable of adequatelyevaluating the airflow pattern in the surgical operating theatres. The proposed new scale isproposed to cover the local and overall air quality evaluations.
This paper investigates the pollutant distribution patterns in a ‘negative pressure’ isolation room by means of objective measurement and CFD modelling. The isolation room has two air supply diffusers and two extract grilles mounted in the ceiling. Numero