Abstract
The purpose of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are to create optimum thermal comfort and appropriate indoor air quality (IAQ) for occupants. Air ventilation systems can significantly affect the health risk in indoor environments, especially those by contaminated aerosols. Therefore, the main goal of the study is to analyze the indoor airflow patterns in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and the impact of outlets/windows. The other goal of this study is to simulate the trajectory of the aerosols from a human sneeze, investigate the impact of opening windows on the number of air changes per hour (ACH) and exhibit the role of dead zones with poor ventilation. The final goal is to show the application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation in improving the HVAC design, such as outlet locations or airflow rate, in addition to the placement of occupants. In this regard, an extensive literature review has been combined with the CFD method to analyze the indoor airflow patterns, ACH, and the role of windows. The airflow pattern analysis shows the critical impact of inflow/outflow and windows. The results show that the CFD model simulation could exhibit optimal placement and safer locations for the occupants to decrease the health risk. The results of the discrete phase simulation determined that the actual ACH could be different from the theoretical ACH as the short circuit and dead zones affect the ACH.
Highlights
Optimal thermal comfort and appropriate indoor air quality (IAQ) are vital for occupants
The full air changes per hour (ACH) can change by increasing the dead zones, the air quality could be lesser in the dead zones, and the contamination load could be higher
The airflow analysis results showed the critical impact of windows and the locations of the inlets/outlets of HVAC systems
Summary
Optimal thermal comfort and appropriate IAQ are vital for occupants. The purpose of HVAC systems is to create thermal comfort and optimal air quality with minimum health risk for occupants [1]. High indoor RH could increase health risks and HDM infestations (house dust mites), as well as lead to the growth of MVOCs (Microbial volatile organic compounds) in indoor air [8,9]. The measurements of indoor air quality in 32 homes in China wherein occupants were reported to have sick building syndrome (SBS) reveals that the sickness happened while the ventilation rates were among 0.35 and 0.78 ACH [10]. The indoor CO2 concentration in a room is mainly based on human activities and is a simple parameter for measuring the actual IAQ, while the recent studies focus are reducing electricity and energy costs [11]
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