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Multizone Modeling as an Indoor Air Quality Design Tool

Published

Author(s)

Amy Musser

Abstract

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 paper describes the use of a multizone model 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. The multizone modeling tool CONTAM is 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. The multizone model is 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.
Proceedings Title
Vol. 2: Design and Operation of HVAC Systems Healthy Buildings, Conference | 6th | | SIT Indoor Air Information
Volume
2
Conference Dates
August 6-10, 2000
Conference Location
Espoo, FI
Conference Title
Healthy Buildings Conference

Keywords

air quality, design, modeling, source control, VOC

Citation

Musser, A. (2000), Multizone Modeling as an Indoor Air Quality Design Tool, Vol. 2: Design and Operation of HVAC Systems Healthy Buildings, Conference | 6th | | SIT Indoor Air Information, Espoo, FI, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=860839 (Accessed December 10, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created August 1, 2000, Updated February 19, 2017