In connection with the research programme "Healthy Buildings", a building with indoor air quality problems was selected for further investigations. A Danish town hall was chosen because of many complaints over several years. A full-scale mock-up of a typical town hall office was built in the climate laboratory. A new heating and ventilating system and a new control strategy were chosen and implemented into the town hall.
Various studies on indoor and outdoor particulate matter in the urban environment in the vicinity of busy arterial roads in the centre of the subtropical city of Brisbane have indicated that the revised United States Environmental Protection Agency National Ambient Air Quality Standards (US EPA NAAQS) for P articulate matter PM2.5 could be exceeded not only outdoors but also indoors.
When a person is located in a contaminant field with significant gradients the contaminant field will be modified locally due to the entrainment and transport of contaminated air in the human boundary layer as well as due to the effect of the person acting as an obstacle to the flow field, etc. In this paper personal exposure measurements are performed by means of the Breathing Thermal Manikin. Contaminant concentration is measured in a number of locations in the breathing zone and in the inhaled air.
To ensure prompt response by real-time air monitors to an accidental release of toxic aerosols in a workplace, safety professionals should understand airflow patterns. This understanding can be achieved with validated computational fluid dynamics (CFO) computer simulations, or with experimental techniques, such as measurements with smoke, neutrally buoyant markers, trace gases, or trace aerosol particles. As a supplementary technique to quantify airflows, the use of a state-of the art, three-dimensional sonic anemometer was explored.
The aim of the study was to describe how allergies and non-allergies perceive the same environment. All high school students in a town in southern Sweden were invited to answer a questionnaire concerning allergy, subjective symptoms, annoyance reactions and perception of the environment (response rate: 81%). The results show that only 45% of the students were nonallergic (n=1,715). Since the symptom frequency among non-allergic students was normal, the schools were classified as healthy.
This study investigated the presence of allergens such as dust and molds in heat recovery ventilation systems and the duct work. It also looks at two different types of cleaning equipment and their ability to clean these pollutants from the rigid and flexible ductwork and heat recovery ventilator (HRV) cores in dedicated balanced supply and exhaust ventilation systems. Samples from the ductwork and cores of ten ventilation systems were tested for levels of dust and mold.
Indoor air quality was monitored at two schools in Essex, UK (located on the same site) during the week 3--7 November 1997. The objective was to determine whether the ventilation rates within the buildings were adequate to provide acceptable air quality to the occupants. Airborne carbon dioxide concentration was determined using continuous infrared detectors. A class base in each school was monitored for a two-day period. Occupancy patterns and window/door opening were observed during the first day of each period. Air temperature was also recorded.