Inverse design of dynamic protective air supply based on proper orthogonal decomposition

Abstract

Designing an efficient dynamic protective air supply (DPAS) system to safeguard the respiratory health of workers during mobile operations is critical in polluted industrial settings. This work develops an inverse design method for DPAS based on proper orthogonal decomposition (POD), which optimizes DPAS parameters and enables DPAS to adjust its angles and air volumes following personnel locations. The DPAS performance is evaluated through the pollution concentration distribution of the personnel movement area in an experimental chamber. The nonlinearity of DPAS parameters to the concentration field is sorted by comparing the energy content assignment of POD modes of each parameter. The reconstruction of the concentration field corresponding to arbitrary DPAS parameters is implemented. The optimal DPAS parameters are traversal-screened in four typical target protective areas with the constraint criteria of meeting the protection requirement and minimizing the DPAS air volume. The relative average deviation of the predicted concentrations from the simulated data is within 2%, which illustrates the rationality and accuracy of the POD-based inverse design method. In addition, the implicit relation and sample distribution strategy for POD reconstruction are discussed. This work contributes to the advancement of the development of ventilation techniques for respiratory protection during worker movement.