Personal Exposure Between People in a Room Ventilated by Textile Terminals—with and without Personalized Ventilation

Abstract

This paper describes an investigation made in a room ventilated by an air distribution system based on a textile terminal. The air distribution in the room is mainly controlled by buoyancy forces from the heat sources, although the flow from the textile terminal can be characterized as a displacement flow with a downward direction in areas of the room where no thermal load is present. The system was extended by a personalized ventilation system to study the improved protection of people in a room. The investigation involved full-scale experiments with two breathing thermal manikins. One manikin is the source and the other the target. In general it was found that when the air is supplied from the textile terminal alone, the flow in the room is fully mixed with limited protection of the occupants. Selected locations of supply, return, and heat sources can produce a displacement flow in the room with increased protection of the occupants. It is shown that personalized ventilation improves the protection of occupants by increasing the personal exposure index.