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1L - Exposure Modelling (WEP/90) Occupational Health: Simulation of Room Air-Contaminant Distribution. Pitarma, Rui A.1, Ramos, Joćo E.2, Carvalho, Maria G.3, 1 Polythecnic Institute of Guarda - ESTG, Guarda, Portugal2 Polythecnic Institute of Leiria - ESTG, Leiria, Portugal3 Technical University of Lisbon-IST, Lisbon, Portugal ABSTRACT- Indoor air quality is recognized as an important factor to be controlled for the health and comfort of occupants. This issue is more important if we take into consideration that today most of people spend more than 90% of their time in artificial environments (buildings and vehicles). Until recently, natural ventilation was adequate for the indoor air quality of buildings. However, energy conservation measures have minimized the infiltration of outside air and contribute to the build-up of indoor air contaminants and consequently to the systematic degradation of the indoor environment quality. In some of these cases, the concentrations of indoor contaminants (tobacco smoke, products of the new many construction and decoration materials, products of combustion and moisture from heating and cooking, bio-effluents and micro-organisms) have increased to levels clearly harmful for the occupants. This paper describes a Computational Fluid Dynamics model to study the airflow patterns, the heat transfer and the contaminant transport into mechanical or natural ventilated spaces. The calculations made use of a numerical procedure, which solves the three-dimensional turbulent equations for the conservation of mass, momentum, thermal energy and air contaminant transport. The turbulence had been modeled by the k-e model and the thermal radiation by the discrete transfer method. In order to demonstrate its applicability, a numerical study of air movement and contaminant transport (tobacco smoke) is made to predict airflow patterns, ventilation performance, contaminant removal effectiveness and indoor air quality in a typical office space. Key words: Indoor environment quality, Occupational health, Transport of pollutants, Numerical simulation |
