Air ventilation performance of school classrooms with respect to the installation positions of return duct

Abstract

For students, who spend most of their time in school classrooms, it is important to maintain indoor air quality (IAQ) to ensure a comfortable and healthy life. Recently, the ventilation performance for indoor air quality in elementary schools has emerged as an important social issue due to the increase in the number of days of continuous high concentrations of particulate matter. Threedimensional numerical analysis has been introduced to evaluate the indoor airflow according to the installation location of return diffusers. Considering the possibility of the cross-infection of infectious diseases between students due to the direction of airflow in the classroom, the airflow angles of the average respiratory height range of elementary school students, between 1.0 and 1.5 m, are analyzed. Throughout the numerical analysis inside the classroom, it is found that the floor return system reduces the indoor horizontal airflow that causes cross-infection among students by 20% compared to the upper return systems. Air ventilation performance is also analyzed in detail using the results of numerical simulation, including streamlines, temperature and the age of air.