Maintenance Of Ventilation Systems Research Articles

An environmental gap analysis at a university campus.

The environmental quality of the learning environment is a critical element for good health and well-being among beneficiaries of tertiary institutions, ultimately influencing staff productivity and learning performance of students. High population densities, inefficient resource use and unique microenvironments within tertiary institutions can result in myriad environmental challenges which require targeted solutions. An environmental gap analysis is a pragmatic and evidence-based approach that can be used to evaluate the environmental quality of institutions through the provision of baseline data and comparison to relevant environmental standards. In this study, an environmental gap analysis was conducted at university campus, where air, noise, water and soil data were collected for 12weeks at indoor and outdoor sites. The data obtained were averaged, graphed and benchmarked using relevant local and international guidelines to identify gaps. Additionally, the data were tested using two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Generally, the levels of parameters monitored were acceptable and within respective local and international guidelines; however, air temperature and relative humidity of the indoor cafeteria as well as turbidity of tap water were not in conformance with guidelines. Improvements in maintenance of ventilation systems and water distribution infrastructure are recommended along with further investigations of drinking water and indoor air quality at the campus. The insight obtained in this study provided important baseline data, in an area where there is a dearth of information, from which deficiencies can be identified and evidence-based recommendations can be made.

Environmental and Health Effects of Ventilation in Subway Stations: A Literature Review.

Environmental health in subway stations, a typical type of urban underground space, is becoming increasingly important. Ventilation is the principal measure for optimizing the complex physical environment in a subway station. This paper narratively reviews the environmental and health effects of subway ventilation and discusses the relevant engineering, environmental, and medical aspects in combination. Ventilation exerts a notable dual effect on environmental health in a subway station. On the one hand, ventilation controls temperature, humidity, and indoor air quality to ensure human comfort and health. On the other hand, ventilation also carries the potential risks of spreading air pollutants or fire smoke through the complex wind environment as well as produces continuous noise. Assessment and management of health risks associated with subway ventilation is essential to attain a healthy subway environment. This, however, requires exposure, threshold data, and thereby necessitates more research into long-term effects, and toxicity as well as epidemiological studies. Additionally, more research is needed to further examine the design and maintenance of ventilation systems. An understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms and aerodynamic characteristics of various pollutants can help formulate ventilation strategies to reduce pollutant concentrations. Moreover, current comprehensive underground space development affords a possibility for creating flexible spaces that optimize ventilation efficiency, acoustic comfort, and space perception.

Multi-Domain Airflow Modeling and Ventilation Characterization Using Mobile Robots, Stationary Sensors and Machine Learning

Ventilation systems are critically important components of many public buildings and workspaces. Proper ventilation is often crucial for preventing accidents, such as explosions in mines and avoiding health issues, for example, through long-term exposure to harmful respirable matter. Validation and maintenance of ventilation systems is thus of key interest for plant operators and authorities. However, methods for ventilation characterization, which allow us to monitor whether the ventilation system in place works as desired, hardly exist. This article addresses the critical challenge of ventilation characterization—measuring and modelling air flow at micro-scales—that is, creating a high-resolution model of wind speed and direction from airflow measurements. Models of the near-surface micro-scale flow fields are not only useful for ventilation characterization, but they also provide critical information for planning energy-efficient paths for aerial robots and many applications in mobile robot olfaction. In this article we propose a heterogeneous measurement system composed of static, continuously sampling sensing nodes, complemented by localized measurements, collected during occasional sensing missions with a mobile robot. We introduce a novel, data-driven, multi-domain airflow modelling algorithm that estimates (1) fields of posterior distributions over wind direction and speed (“ventilation maps”, spatial domain); (2) sets of ventilation calendars that capture the evolution of important airflow characteristics at measurement positions (temporal domain); and (3) a frequency domain analysis that can reveal periodic changes of airflow in the environment. The ventilation map and the ventilation calendars make use of an improved estimation pipeline that incorporates a wind sensor model and a transition model to better filter out sporadic, noisy airflow changes. These sudden changes may originate from turbulence or irregular activity in the surveyed environment and can, therefore, disturb modelling of the relevant airflow patterns. We tested the proposed multi-domain airflow modelling approach with simulated data and with experiments in a semi-controlled environment and present results that verify the accuracy of our approach and its sensitivity to different turbulence levels and other disturbances. Finally, we deployed the proposed system in two different real-world industrial environments (foundry halls) with different ventilation regimes for three weeks during full operation. Since airflow ground truth cannot be obtained, we present a qualitative discussion of the generated airflow models with plant operators, who concluded that the computed models accurately depicted the expected airflow patterns and are useful to understand how pollutants spread in the work environment. This analysis may then provide the basis for decisions about corrective actions to avoid long-term exposure of workers to harmful respirable matter.

The consequences of the inappropriate use of ventilation systems operating in indoor swimming pool conditions - analysis

Increasingly more leisure facilities, such as water parks or indoor swimming pools are being built in Poland nowadays. In order to ensure the air quality required by standards for such leisure facilities it is necessary to fit them with effectively functioning ventilation. For the removal of excess humidity, as well as chlorine ions occurring as a result of the disinfection of water as well as the carbon dioxide emitted by people using the facility, the ventilation system needs to be appropriately designed and efficient. For this reason, studies into the air quality in such facilities were undertaken. The paper presents the causes and consequences of the inappropriate operation and maintenance of ventilation systems in swimming pools. The study found that the causes of deterioration in the technical condition of the system which was operated in an environment with chlorine ions were: an inappropriate manufacture of its components and the wrong choice of construction materials for the given environment of operation. Furthermore, failure to follow the manufacturer's guidelines for the operation and maintenance of the components of the ventilation system greatly precipitated its degradation and the occurrence of sick building syndrome in the swimming pool. Solutions were found and proposed in order to improve the efficiency of the ventilation system in the given swimming-pool facility.

Editorial

Between the March issue of 1999 and the December issue of 2007, the Indoor Air has published more than 437 articles, among which the word ‘ventilation’ has appeared in the ‘title’ of 30 of them, and in ‘abstract’ of 140. There are 39 articles where the word of ‘ventilation’ is present in both the ‘title’ and ‘abstract’. The articles published have covered, in fact, as wide a spectrum of topics as most can possibly study for the role of ventilation in relation to the quality of indoor air and effect on human health. Categorized based on the direct reading of listed title and the overall objectives delivered, themes of these publications have included the review (7)** Number of articles in the category. , ventilation and pollutant removal (12), ventilation and indoor chemistry (1), maintenance of ventilation systems (1), ventilation and health (5), ventilation vs. human response (5), ventilation and indoor environmental quality (7), and others (2). The review articles published have discussed issues both as focused as ‘PERSONALIZED VENTILATION’ and as general as ‘HUMAN RESPONSE TO VENTILATION’. In the topic of ‘ventilation and pollutant removal’, the Journal has published investigations conducted in a great diversity of indoor environments as well as information generated through either computational and theoretical modeling or direct measurements. As human welfare has been historically the origin of public concerns for indoor air quality, a higher percentage of studies have reported how ventilation, either in terms of efficiency or maintenance, may affect human health and how the human response to changing indoor air quality can be more sensitively detected. An obvious phenomenon is also observed in most recent years as studies present the rising attention on researching how ventilation system may better perform, and therefore improve the overall quality of indoor environment. Limited research has successfully demonstrated how ventilation influences the reactions of indoor air pollutants, and the thirst for gaining a more in-depth understanding cannot be more apparent as the global climate change has challenged an ever-changing profile of outdoor air, the direct parent source of indoor air in most circumstances. As needed and sought-after as the previously mentioned topic is probably the theme on ‘effective maintenance and control strategy for operating ventilation system’ wherever there is one, a topic not adequately addressed before in the Journal, but likely to be of great desire in the time to come. The aforementioned statistics is merely a conveniently available, yet much-too superficial way of highlighting how the notion of ‘ventilation’ by itself has dominated a significant percentage of the discussion for the research of ‘indoor air quality’ over the past decade. In this issue, articles are, again, assembled from either theoretical or field study, from system evaluation or human response when the role of ventilation is discussed in the aspiration of good indoor air. Previously available mechanism and apparatus is also being examined in a new setting. Judging from the recent publications, the research activities orientated toward studying the fundamentals and implication of ventilation to achieve or sustain good indoor air quality are likely to remain as the focal interest in the foreseeable future.