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A theoretical study on gaseous pollutant flushing of natural ventilation driven by buoyancy forces in industrial buildings

  • Research Article
  • Indoor/Outdoor Airflow and Air Quality
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Abstract

The acceleration of industrialization worsening indoor environments of industrial buildings has drawn more attention in recent years. Natural ventilation can improve indoor air quality (IAQ) and reduce carbon emissions. To evaluate gaseous pollutant levels in industrial buildings for the development of buoyancy-driven natural ventilation, two theoretical models of pollutant flushing (Model I and Model II) are developed based on the existing thermal stratification theory in combination with the mixing characteristics of lower pollutant. The results show that indoor pollutant flushing is mainly dependent on the pollution source intensity and effective ventilation area. The mixing characteristics of lower pollutant has an important effect on pollutant stratification and evolution during ventilation, but it does not change the prediction results at steady state. When the dimensionless pollution source intensity is larger than 1, the pollution source should be cleaned up or other ventilation methods should be used instead to improve IAQ. In addition, the comparisons between Model I and Model II on instantaneous pollutant concentration are significantly influenced by the pollution source intensity, and the actual pollutant concentration is more likely to be between the predicted values of Model I and Model II. To reduce pollutant concentration to a required level, the pollution source intensity should be in a certain range. The theoretical models as well as the necessary conditions for ventilation effectiveness obtained can be used for the ventilation optimization design of industrial buildings.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (No. 2018YFC0705305) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University of Donghua University (No. 2232017A-09).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Urban Construction, Changzhou University, Changzhou, 213164, China

    Jiawei Zhuang & Rumeng Yang

  2. School of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, School of Energy, Changzhou University, Changzhou, 213164, China

    Genyang Chen

  3. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China

    Jiawei Zhuang, Kun Han, Yongfa Diao & Henggen Shen

  4. School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Dongdong Tian

Authors
  1. Jiawei Zhuang
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  2. Genyang Chen
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  3. Rumeng Yang
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  4. Kun Han
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  5. Dongdong Tian
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  6. Yongfa Diao
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  7. Henggen Shen
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Jiawei Zhuang, Genyang Chen, Rumeng Yang, Yongfa Diao and Henggen Shen. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jiawei Zhuang, Dongdong Tian, Kun Han, Yongfa Diao and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yongfa Diao.

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Declaration of competing interest

The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

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This study does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Zhuang, J., Chen, G., Yang, R. et al. A theoretical study on gaseous pollutant flushing of natural ventilation driven by buoyancy forces in industrial buildings. Build. Simul. 17, 575–589 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-023-1092-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-023-1092-3

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