Air Cleaner as an Alternative to Increased Ventilation Rates in Buildings: A Simulation Study for an Office

Indoor air pollution is a significant concern due to its adverse effects on human health and productivity. With people spending most of their time indoors, exposure to indoor air contaminants can lead to various health issues, including respiratory problems, cardiovascular diseases, and even an increased risk of lung cancer and premature mortality. Additionally, poor indoor air quality can result in short-term symptoms like headaches, eye and throat irritation, fatigue, and asthma, impacting workplace productivity and absenteeism.

Ventilation and health – a review

People in industrialised countries spend about 90% of their time indoors. Hence, a good indoor climate is essential for health and well-being. Ventilation of buildings plays an important role concerning health aspects of the occupants and inadequate ventilation may cause health costs that may have been avoidable if ventilation would have been adequate. Additionally, good or bad ventilation has impacts on the quality of the building, e.g. in very tight buildings, the risk of mould and dampness is higher if air change is insufficient.

Impact of ventilation and recirculation rates on exposure to and intake of ozone and its initiated chemistry products: Mass balance model evaluation

A mass balance model is used to examine the impact of two ventilation (1 /h and 2 /h) and recirculation (7 /h and 14 /h) rates on concentrations, exposure to and intake of ozone (of outdoor origin) and secondary organic aerosols (SOA) derived from the ozone initiated chemistry in indoor environment. Measured data from several experimental studies conducted by the authors in a 236m3 field environmental chamber (FEC) configured to simulate an office are used for the mass balance model evaluations.

Calculating the Intensity of Ventilation in Classrooms on the Basis of Measured Concentrations of Carbon Dioxide in Slovakia - Case Study

Air quality in a classroom is very important. According to a study by Wargocki et al (2012) a shortage of ventilation in the classroom reduces the ability of students to concentrate and causes an increase in the number of errors during the elaboration of tasks. The aim of this study was to contribute to the optimization of acquisition and operating costs of HVAC equipment and to ensure hygienic requirements of air quality in the indoor environment for classrooms.

Experimental analysis of different operational configurations for single sided natural ventilation as part of a low energy retrofit

Non-invasive, scalable, building retrofit solutions are amongst the most likely large scale adoption techniques to assist in climate change adaptation in the existing built environment, particularly in university type buildings where rehousing live activities will prove costly. Natural ventilation is an attractive retrofit strategy due to the low impact nature of the installation. A number of internal environmental criteria that are important to ventilative cooling strategies can be substantially modified as a result of an external retrofit solution.

Experimental evaluation for the dynamic insulation applied to window frame

An efficient thermal insulation of glazing or window frame is important because poor insulating performance usually cause the largest heat loss on any buildings. As one of the methods decreasing heat loss of buildings, we proposed a dynamic insulation system applied to window frame, and its energy saving performance and applicability for buliding had been confirmed using numerical simulation in previous study [1].

Natural Ventilation in Thai Hospitals: A Field Study

Natural ventilation has been appraised as the main strategy in environmental control of airborne infection in resource-limited healthcare facilities. While natural ventilation offers a low-cost alternative in diluting and removing contaminated air, its’ performance in actual settings is not fully understood. This paper reports a cross-sectional field study of six hospitals in Thailand with an emphasis on ventilation performance of naturally-ventilated hospital wards and AII rooms. The results showed that ventilation rates of 3-26 ACH could be achieved in hospital wards.

The Effects of Ventilation in Homes on Health

It is estimated that people in the developed world spend more than 85-90% of their time indoors. Of this, most is spent in homes. To minimize health risks from pollutants occurring in homes, exposures should be controlled. The most effective way to achieve this is to control sources of pollutants and to reduce emissions. Often, especially in existing buildings, this strategy is difficult to implement, in which case exposures are controlled by providing sufficient, presumably clean, outdoor ventilation air to dilute and remove the contaminants.

The Proportion of Residences in European Countries with Ventilation Rates below the Regulation Based Limit Value

The rate of ventilation in buildings is regulated in most European countries to provide a sufficient exchange of clean air to maintain and ensure the health and comfort of building occupants. Information on the actual level of ventilation rates is needed to estimate the consequences of reduced ventilation on the potential increasing risk of health problems. Unfortunately only limited population based data are available on the measured ventilation rates of residences in European countries.

ASHRAE's new residential ventilation standard

The major concern for HVAC's professionals is the engineering of indoor environments, but health and safety must be a primary concern too. In so far as people spend nearly 90 % of their time indoors - mostly at home -, residential ventilation ought to have a large emphasis in ASHRAE. In this article, today's sources are examined (combustion, microbiologicals, radon and soil gas, particles, VOCs), then ASHRAE's residential ventilation standard requirements are listed.

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