Strategies to Enhance Contamination Control Performance through Ventilation Improvement in a Biosafety Laboratory Building

Abstract

A biosafety level (BSL) laboratory is a set of biocontainment preventative measures used to prevent and isolate hazardous biological agents or their accidental release in a laboratory. It is vital to provide a negative-pressurized environment for disease infection control. The experimental equipment layout may affect the personnel’s exposure to infection. However, the equipment layout and exhaust air grilles were in a fixed position in this investigated BSL. Due to retrofitting, the layout arrangement of HEPA as supply air is investigated numerically. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation is conducted to analyze and determine a better design for contamination control. This study proposes three ventilation arrangements as an alternative design, including vertical arrangement, horizontal arrangement, and L-shaped ventilation arrangements (instead of the supply being arranged in a single line). In addition, the airflow distribution, concentration decay, air of age, ventilation, and removal effectiveness are all examined in the study. The numerical simulation results were verified by a field measurement test. The results revealed that the L-shaped ventilation arrangement for supply air diffusers would achieve better ventilation and removal efficiency. The local mean age of air was also identified as the most satisfactory ventilation performance measure, as it shows the level of contaminant control. It also indicated that ventilation could be improved by arranging the supply air layout with less expenditure through CFD-aided simulation in identifying strategies for best practices for the design stage to reduce the running cost at full operation.