Transport and deposition of indoor radon decay products—I. Model development and validation

Abstract

Commonly used mathematical models of indoor radon decay product behavior are based on macroscopic mass-balances, often referred to as ‘uniformly-mixed models’. The uniformly-mixed model's applicability is limited by its inability to track the movement of pollutants from their sources to other areas within the enclosure, to permit spatial- or time-dependent sources, or to take proper account of interactions with macroscopic surfaces. Although the uniformly-mixed model parameterizes the deposition process as a constant volumetric removal rate, in reality the deposition process is actually a surface phenomenon and is strongly affected by environmental conditions. This paper describes the development of RADTRAN, a two-dimensional radon progeny transport model that begins with the differential conservation equations describing the motion of air and the transport of reactive pollutants, introduces appropriate boundary conditions to represent surface deposition, and then calculates the concentration distribution of radon progeny throughout the entire region of interest. Knowing the concentration gradient near the surface, a local mass-transfer coefficient (the deposition velocity) can be determined as a function of environmental conditions. RADTRAN simulations have been based on several flow conditions: buoyancy-driven recirculating enclosure flows, free and forced-convection boundary layer flows, and one-dimensional diffusion. Free progeny diffusivity, D f, and attachment rate, X, were varied over representative ranges. For these conditions, RADTRAN calculated free deposition velocities of u f = 0.014–0.079 cm s −1, for 218Po. RADTRAN predictions are compared to a range of experimental measurements. It was found that the predicted range of deposition velocities is in rough agreement with findings from experiments conducted in flow conditions similar to the simplified flows used in RADTRAN.