Air quality and energy considerations in building ventilation

Started: May 2018
Supervisor: Hughes, G.; Burridge, H.C

Description of Research

People spend 90% of their time indoors and it is crucial to create a healthy indoor environment for occupants. Thermal radiation account for approximately 1/3 occupant’s total heat output and can strongly affect indoor environment factors including temperature structure, air flow, and contaminant distribution. However, it is not modelled directly in most numerical studies due to its complexity and computational time cost.

In this study, the impact of occupant's radiation output on these factors in a displacement-ventilated room will be studied using an open source CFD software - OpenFoam. A simplified method of modelling thermal radiation will be proposed and validated by comparing with an associated manikin experiment and DORM (discrete ordinates radiation model). A mathematical model will be further developed to predict the temperature and pollutant structure in a buoyancy driven natural ventilated room considering the effect of radiation.

Background

Pu has a BE in Building Environment and Energy Application Engineering in Chongqing University, and an MSc in Built Environment: Environment Design and Engineering in UCL. 

Pu Gong

Fluid Mechanics Research Student 
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering 
Imperial College London SW7 2AZ 
p.gong18@imperial.ac.uk