Ventilation optimization for reduction of indoor semi-volatile organic compound concentration based on the variational principle

Abstract

Ventilation optimization is one of effective methods for improving indoor air quality. In this paper, a new optimization strategy was proposed based on the variational principle for reducing indoor semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) pollution, which are quite likely to be sorbed by suspended particles. The method takes the average concentration of SVOCs as the optimization objective, considers the particles adsorption of SVOCs, and finally gives an optimization equation set that the optimal air flow field needs to satisfy. By solving the optimization equation set numerically, the proposed method is applied in a simple room model. The optimization results show that the inflowing air needs to flow to the area of high SVOCs concentration preferentially in order to bring away more SVOCs, and finally decrease the average concentration. With the guide of the optimized air flow field, we redesigned the ventilation structure and decreased the average concentration of SVOCs significantly (from 0.33 μg/m3 to 0.23 μg/m3 in the specific example). Therefore, the proposed method gives guidance for the ventilate design of indoor environment, and can be extended to more general and more complex situations.