The effect of fresh air opening locations on natural ventilation and thermal environment in industrial workshop with heat source

Abstract

The buoyancy-driven natural ventilation was numerically simulated based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method in a typical industrial plant with heat source. Heat stress index (HSI) was used to evaluate the thermal environment. The influence of fresh air opening locations, i.e., the distance between fresh air opening and ground, H, on the natural ventilation performance and thermal environment was discussed. Results showed that when the distance between fresh air inlet and ground increased from 0.3 to 1.2 m, the ventilation rate and the air velocity in working zone increased, the convection heat loss from human body changed very slightly, the radiation heat received by human body decreased obviously, and the required sweat rate decreased. The HIS decreased as H increased and the allowed exposure time of workers to continuously work increased. Therefore, when there is a heat source above the ground in the workshop, it is helpful to improve the thermal environment by increasing the distance between the fresh air inlet and ground. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014.