On the numerical study of contaminant particle concentration in indoor airflow

Abstract

The application of three turbulence models-standard k-ε, re-normalization group (RNG) k-ε and RNG-based large eddy simulation (LES) model-to simulate indoor contaminant particle dispersion and concentration distribution in a model room has been investigated. The measured air phase velocity data obtained by Posner et al. [Energy and Buildings 2003;35:515-26], are used to validate the simulation results. All the three turbulence model predictions have shown to be in good agreement with the experimental data. The RNG-based LES model has shown to yield the best agreement. The flow of contaminant particles (with diameters of 1 and 10 μm) is simulated within the indoor airflow environment of the model room. Comparing the three turbulence models for particle flow predictions, the RNG-based LES model through better accommodating unsteady low-Reynolds-number (LRN) turbulent flow structure has shown to provide more realistic particle dispersion and concentration distribution than the other two conventional turbulence models. As the experimental approach to access indoor contaminant particle concentration can be rather expensive and unable to provide the required detailed information, the LES prediction can be effectively employed to validate the widely used k-ε models that are commonly applied in many building simulation investigations. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.