ventilation effectiveness

Ventilation systems are designed based on the air flow volume required to ventilate the room, the same applies to façade-integrated ventilation devices operating in alternating mode, also referred to as push-pull devices. Those rather small devices represent a simple way to provide fresh air and air-to- air heat recovery for residential dwellings. The present research aims to analyse the ventilation effectiveness of push-pull devices experimentally. Hence, a tracer gas analysis is performed in a residential building.

Diffuse ceiling ventilation is a novel air distribution concept, where the space above a suspended ceiling is used as a plenum and fresh air is supplied into the occupied zone through perforations in the suspended ceiling panels. Due to the low momentum supply, the airflow in the room is driven by buoyancy force generated by heat sources. The previous studies indicate that the diffuse ceiling ventilation system can effectively eliminate the draught risk in the occupied zone and provide a comfortable indoor environment even with low-temperature supply.

Most natural ventilation (NV) systems used in non-residential buildings are single sided (SS). These systems are easy to integrate in the building layout, since, unlike in cross-ventilation (CV), these systems do not require access to two facades or a central stack. Current knowledge about SS NV flow penetration away from the façade can be found in building regulations and design rules of thumb.

The differences between extract ventilation and balanced ventilation are subject of many discussions in sales markets where both solutions have their share. Often, the differences are marked in terms of energy, because balanced ventilation is normally accompanied by heat recovery. But there is another difference in terms of the ventilation effectiveness of the system.This document reports experiments in a scale model of a house showing the difference between extract ventilation and balanced ventilation in ventilation effectiveness, and therefore in achievable indoor air quality.

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.

Central ventilation systems with heat recovery have shown their limits especially within the context of building energy retrofit. The difficulties to install these systems in existing buildings, to find available space for devices, air ducts, silencers and fire dampers and to independently control the air flow in each room according to the real ventilation needs have led to an increasing market for decentralized ventilation devices.

The transient accessibility of supply air (TASA) and transient accessibility of contaminant source (TACS) in ventilated rooms are important indices to evaluate the effect of ventilation and the indoor air quality (IAQ). These indices can be measured by experimental method or calculated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools. Compared to the measurement method, the numerical method has a lot of advantages such as fast, flexible and with detailed data. In this paper, the calculation and validation of the TASA and TACS are introduced.

Air quality in offices depends on the ventilation system ability to remove contaminants from the occupied zone. In a low polluted building air quality mainly depends on the human presence and carbon dioxide is normally used as indicator of human bioeffluents.

Today an acceptable indoor air quality is mainly defined by specifying the required level of ventilation in air changes per hour or the outside air supply rate. This would be equivalent to defining the requirements for thermal comfort by specifying the level of heating or cooling in Watts. The increasing societal need for energy efficiency will often result in very tight buildings. This means that the amount of outside air supplied by infiltration is not enough to provide the required ventilation.