Natural ventilation of toilet units in K–12 school restrooms using CFD

Abstract

In this study, the influence of architectural design parameters (the exterior window area, the wall height at a corridor-side, and the door gap of a toilet unit) on the airflow patterns and malodorous volatile substance (acetic acid) distributions within toilet units were investigated via computational fluid dynamics (CFD), with the restrooms in K–12 public schools (kindergarten through grade 12) of Taiwan as research objects. The results show that when there is a 2 m/s north wind in winter, all the cases exceed the required 12 air changes per hour (ACH), and most are above 43.75 ACH. When there is a 0.5 m/s south wind in summer, nearly half of the cases fail to reach 12 ACH. Maintaining an adequate natural ventilation rate and an acceptable level of odor pollution through passive design and architectural design is difficult. Thinking about how to improve the ventilation efficiency of toilet units with the aid of simple, appropriate, and energy-saving mechanical ventilation approaches is necessary.