A hybrid model for investigating transient particle transport in enclosed environments

Chun Chen; Wei Liu; Fei Li; Chao-Hsin Lin; Junjie Liu; Jingjing Pei; Qingyan Chen

doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2012.12.020

A hybrid model for investigating transient particle transport in enclosed environments

Build Environ. 2013 Apr:62:45-54. doi: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2012.12.020. Epub 2013 Feb 1.

Authors

Chun Chen¹, Wei Liu^{1

2}, Fei Li², Chao-Hsin Lin³, Junjie Liu², Jingjing Pei², Qingyan Chen^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
² School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, 92 Weijin Road, Naikai District, Tianjin 300072, China.
³ Environmental Control Systems, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Everett, WA 98203, USA.

Abstract

It is important to accurately model person-to-person particle transport in mechanical ventilation spaces to create and maintain a healthy indoor environment. The present study introduces a hybrid DES-Lagrangian and RANS-Eulerian model for simulating transient particle transport in enclosed environments; this hybrid model can ensure the accuracy and reduce the computing cost. Our study estimated two key time constants for the model that are important parameters for reducing the computing costs. The two time constants estimated were verified by airflow data from both an office and an aircraft cabin case. This study also conducted experiments in the first-class cabin of an MD-82 commercial airliner with heated manikins to validate the hybrid model. A pulse particle source was applied at the mouth of an index manikin to simulate a cough. The particle concentrations versus time were measured at the breathing zone of the other manikins. The trend of particle concentrations versus time predicted by the hybrid model agrees with the experimental data. Therefore, the proposed hybrid model can be used for investigating transient particle transport in enclosed environments.

Keywords: Aircraft cabin; Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); Detached Eddy Simulation (DES); Eulerian drift flux model; Lagrangian model; Office.