Advanced turbulence models for predicting particle transport in enclosed environments

Miao Wang, Chao Hsin Lin, Qingyan Chen

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

108 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Occupant health is related to particle contaminants in enclosed environments, so it is important to study particle transport in spaces to quantify the rates and routes of potential disease transmission. In many cases, particle contaminants in an enclosed space are generated from an unsteady source. This investigation used the experimental data from two steady-state cases as well as one transient particle dispersion case in evaluating the performance of five (one steady and four transient) airflow models with the Eulerian and Lagrangian methods. The transient models obtained the mean flow and particle information by averaging them over time. For the models tested in this study, the Eulerian method performed similarly for all five airflow models. The Lagrangian method predicted incorrect particle concentrations with the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) methods, but did well with the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) models. For unsteady-state particle dispersion, the LES or DES models, along with the Lagrangian method, showed the best performance among all the models tested.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)40-49
Number of pages10
JournalBuilding and Environment
Volume47
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2012

Keywords

  • Detached eddy simulation
  • Eulerian method
  • Lagrangian method
  • Large eddy simulation
  • Particle contaminant
  • Turbulence dispersion

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Environmental Engineering
  • Civil and Structural Engineering
  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Building and Construction

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