Effect of zero air change rate on particle dispersion in a room with floor heating

Abstract

Dispersion of airborne particles in the office and residential areas should be well known as these particles in an enclosed volume has a significant effect on human health. In this study, the effect of the floor heating system, which is often preferred by end users due to the energy efficiency of low heating systems, on particle distribution in a room was investigated numerically. It is essential to examine the floor heating having a significant place among low heating systems, concerning particle dispersion. In enclose volumes, ambient air should be replaced with fresh air that is supplied from outdoor in order to ensure indoor air quality. However, the ideal air change rates may not be met for daily use, even in some cases air change rates might be zero. Therefore, in this study absence of air change were assumed, and after temperature and velocity distributions were determined, five different sized particles were tracked by using Eulerian-Lagrangian model. Additionally, three heating capacities (35 W/m2 41.25 W/m2 and 47 W/m2) of the floor heating system were investigated. In this study, where computational fluid dynamics were used, the effect of drag, lift, thermophoretic and Brownian forces were considered. It was found that particles were settled on walls and ceiling due to zero air change rate, and particle concentration rises in the lower part of the wall as particle diameter increases.