Ultraviolet Air Disinfection in the Theater

Abstract

Theater attendance, and the decrease during times of epidemic respiratory disease, involves a public-health and a theater-operation problem possible of partial solution by an increase in ventilation, a sanitary ventilation, probably effective only when provided in amounts physically and economically impractical because of the power and duct capacity required to heat and distribute outdoor winter make-up air. Ultraviolet air disinfection provides a way of making the air in the upper third or half of theater auditoria and accessory rooms as good as outdoor air, or a sanitary ventilation of the lower air, equivalent to 50 to 100 air changes, resulting from the usual random vertical air circulation throughout the horizontal cross section of occupied rooms. Any sanitary ventilation value in the make-up air of a duct-heating and air-conditioning system, may also be increased five- to tenfold by using ultraviolet energy to disinfect all recirculated air to the bacterial equivalence of outdoor air. There are tabulated lamp requirements for upper-air and duct-air disinfection and schematic installation sketches.