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Case 7

IAQ Design

[Musser, A. (2000)]

Increased public awareness and changing industry standards have highlighted the importance of indoor air quality in the building design process. At the same time, many owners would like to construct buildings that conserve energy and minimize environmental impact. To accomplish both of these goals, the designer must be able to understand airflow rates, pressure relationships, and contaminant transport in buildings. This case study describes the use of a CONTAM to perform design calculations for a new building on a college campus in the United States. The building incorporates a number of environmentally "progressive" features, such as natural ventilation, energy recovery, a biological wastewater treatment process, and CO2 demand controlled ventilation. CONTAM was used to size an exhaust fan for source isolation, select minimum ventilation quantities to control building related contaminants, and specify procedures for flushing out contaminants prior to occupancy. CONTAM was also used to predict transient contaminant levels, taking into account weather and associated infiltration.  The generalization of these design and analysis techniques to a wider range of indoor air quality design applications is also discussed.

Created March 7, 2018, Updated February 13, 2020