Wind tunnel measurements of indoor air quality in a building with natural cross-ventilation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31349/RevMexFis.71.010601Keywords:
Natural ventilation; indoor air quality; wind tunnel measurements; tracer gas; electron capture detectionAbstract
In recent years, there has been an increase in indoor air quality studies in buildings, which examine minimum requirements to reduce the probability of respiratory disease transmission. These studies are primarily conducted in existing buildings, with fewer evaluations of generic geometry buildings in wind tunnels. These experimental studies are valuable, among other things, for validating numerical models of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This study employs the experimental technique of electron capture detection to obtain the distribution of a tracer gas throughout the interior volume of a scaled building with cross-ventilation in a modelled atmospheric boundary layer flow. The building is considered isolated (without neighbors) and features windows at the same bottom height of the windward and leeward facades. A facade porosity (the ratio of area between the window and the facade) of 10% is considered. Maintaining geometric and dynamic similarity, the results are scaled based on a building height of 2.8 m and an incident wind velocity at the building height of 0.85 m/s. Under these conditions, the values of air exchange rate I = 0.0167 s −1 , nominal time τn = 60 s, and 60 air changes per hour (ACH) are calculated. It is anticipated that the concentration results presented in this study will be utilized in future validations of CFD models.
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Copyright (c) 2025 S. F. Díaz-Calderón, C. Gromke, J. A. Castillo, G. Huelsz
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