Comparison of Airflow and Pollutant Dispersion in Multi-room Buildings under Different Cross-Ventilation Patterns

Abstract

The leakage of hazardous gases in the building environment poses a significant threat to the health and even life safety of indoor personnel. It is essential to fully understand the whole process of indoor contaminant dispersion—from source emission, transmission route, to the potential risk of personal exposure. In order to alleviate the harm caused by pollutant leakage to indoor personnel and explore the most effective way to minimize the exposure risk, the airflow pattern and pollutant dispersion features under different ventilation paths were studied in this paper by applying the tracer gas method. The experiment was conducted in a scaled multi-room chamber (1:2). A wind wall system was designed and used to simulate the naturally ventilated environments. Wind velocities at selected key positions which represent the characteristics of multi-room flow field were measured. The concentration distribution was obtained and the possible transmission route of air pollutant was analyzed.