Numerical Analysis of Indoor Air Quality in Hospital Case Study: Bronchoscopy Unit

Abstract

This paper presents three ventilation scenarios for a bronchoscopy unit using a numerical study. A Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is employed for this purpose. The results obtained are visualized using Smokeview (SMV), which is a program for displaying FDS results. The numerical results are compared with experimental ones from Cheong and Phua ’ s research study. This study was chosen because it investi-gates ventilation strategies in hospital isolation rooms using a tracer gas technique. In the present work, six points of measurements are utilized to evaluate the concentrations of contaminants and air velocity. The results show that the concentrations estimated by FDS are inferior to the experimental results given by Cheong and Phua . For example, in the SP1 point of measurement, the concentrations estimated by FDS and by Cheong and Phua are 20 and 28.9 ppm, respectively, while in the SP5 point, the concentrations estimated by FDS and by Cheong and Phua are 28.6 and 32.9 ppm, respectively. The error percentages between FDS estimates and experimental measurements made by Cheong and Phua range between 1 and 32%.