BUILD SIMUL

DOI 10.1007/s12273-016-0295-2

An evaluation index for the control effect of the local ventilation

systems on indoor air quality in industrial buildings

Research Article
Yi Wang1 (), Yingxue Cao1, Bo Liu1, Jiaping Liu1, Yang Yang1, Qun Yu1,2

1. School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, No. 13 Yanta RD., Xi'an, Shaanxi
710055, China
2. Shaanxi Architectural Design and Research Institute, China

Abstract Keywords
To evaluate the control effect on indoor air quality (IAQ) of the local ventilation systems in industrial evaluation index,
buildings with centralized contaminant sources, a new index, namely, normalized concentration local ventilation system,
in the target zone (NC-TZ), was proposed in this paper. According to theoretical analysis, NC-TZ is computational fluid dynamics (CFD),
non-dimensional and ranges from 0 to 1. When NC-TZ tends toward 0, the control effect of the indoor air quality (IAQ),
local ventilation system on IAQ is more satisfactory. When NC-TZ tends toward 1, the control effect contaminant concentration distribution

on IAQ is less satisfactory. The numerical simulation on a push–pull ventilation system with varying
exhaust flow rates and varying distances between push and pull hoods was performed. The
Article History
Received: 5 January 2016
results demonstrate that for the same capture efficiency, changing the local ventilation system
Revised: 12 April 2016
characteristics can change the control effect on the local environment. The results for obstacles at
Accepted: 18 April 2016
different positions also indicate that NC-TZ can clearly reflect the control effect on IAQ of the local
ventilation systems in industrial buildings.
© Tsinghua University Press and
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
2016

1 Introduction usually evaluated by the capture efficiency of the exhaust

The air pollution caused by contaminants emitted from
industrial processes is strongly harmful to indoor operators.
People suffering from occupational diseases expand gradually
with industry development (Brown 2006). Simultaneously,
hood since it is a direct, quantitative measure of system
performance (Madsen et al. 1994; Ellenbecker et al. 1983).
However, the capture efficiency only reflects the capture
effect of the system on contaminants, regardless of the
contaminant concentration distribution in the room. Even

indoor environmental quality can also obviously influence
operating efficiency (Sundell 1996; Wargocki et al. 1999).
Woods (1989) conducted a telephone survey, and the results
showed that 20% of operators complained that low indoor
air quality (IAQ) reduced their operating efficiency. Great
attention should be paid to IAQ in industrial buildings to
protect operators’ health and improve operating efficiency.
Compared with civil buildings, local contaminant sources
can be found more frequently in industrial buildings. Thus,
compared with general ventilation that removes contaminants
from the whole room, the effect of local ventilation that
controls contaminants directly at their source is more desirable.
In existing studies, local ventilation system performance is
E-mail: wangyi6920@126.com
Indoor/Outdoor Airflow
if the capture efficiency is very high, the control effect of the
and Air Quality
system on IAQ could not be considered simply as desirable
as that on contaminants. When contaminants emitted from
sources diffuse into the room extensively, for example, IAQ
may not meet the accepted standards and operators may
suffer from occupational diseases due to their large exposure,
even if contaminants can be captured eventually. Therefore,
both the capture efficiency and the evaluation index for
IAQ should be considered to reflect the comprehensive
performance of the local ventilation system in industrial
buildings.
For traditional evaluation indices, such as the “age” of
the air, the air exchange efficiency (AEE) and contamination
2 Wang et al. / Building Simulation

removal efficiency (CRE), a ventilated room is usually regarded processes are usually strongly toxic, even if the mean
as a whole to evaluate IAQ. The “age” of the air, which is contaminant concentration value of the worker’s breathing
the time air remains in the room, is a quantitative index that zone is below the accepted value, there may still be a serious
measures the freshness level of indoor air. It is independent hidden health danger when other parts of the body are
of indoor contaminants and only relies on the airflow pattern exposed to the contaminants for a long period of time (Divine
(Sandberg and Sjoberg 1983). AEE is the ratio of the mean and Hartman 2001; Koh et al. 2011). Therefore, the various
age of the room air with displacement ventilation to that of existing zones and indices may not reflect the control effect
the room with the actual ventilation system. Similar to the on IAQ of local ventilation system in industrial buildings
“age” of the air, the air exchange efficiency is also a quantitative clearly.
index which can be used to evaluate the freshness level of In this study, the target zone was defined to reflect the
indoor air (Sandberg and Sjoberg 1983; Sandberg 1983). CRE, indoor contaminant diffusion region. A new index, namely,
also known as ventilation efficiency, is an index to judge the the normalized concentration in the target zone (NC-TZ),
ability of the supply air to remove indoor contaminants. Both was proposed to evaluate the control effect of local ventilation
the airflow pattern and the indoor contaminant sources systems on IAQ in industrial buildings. Several cases were
determine the CRE (Sandberg 1981). presented to demonstrate the new index.
However, environmental parameters in the actual
building, such as temperature, velocity and contaminant 2 Normalized concentration in the target zone
concentration, often present non-uniform distributions.
It is reasonable to divide the ventilated room into several The aim of a local ventilation system is to limit the con-
control zones to reduce building energy consumption and taminant to a local area in order to reduce its effect on the
improve IAQ. For decades, many researchers had made whole environment in an industrial building. In the actual
significant contributions to calculating these traditional production process, the following phenomenon is frequently
indices at different control zones and proposing new indices. observed: for the same contaminant species and the same
Makhoul et al. (2013) applied the index at the breathing zone contaminant emission concentration, different flow field
to evaluate different cases when they discussed the improved characteristics, such as the larger supply flow rate and
performance of a ceiling-mounted personalized ventilation exhaust flow rate in Fig. 1(a) than those in Fig. 1(b), may
nozzle assisted by small desk-mounted fans to reduce the result in a difference of these contaminant concentration
effect of a thermal plume generated by the occupant. Xing distributions, as shown in Fig. 1. For these distributions,
et al. (2001) analysed the relationship of the age of air the capture efficiency of the local ventilation system has
distribution, the air exchange efficiency and the ventilation already reached the peak of 100%. The mean contaminant
effectiveness at the breathing zone and the occupied zone
(below 2 m) in a room with displacement ventilation. Cao
et al. (2014) evaluated IAQ and human comfort at the
occupied zone when they developed theoretical models to
predict the performance of a new type of air distribution
method known as protected occupied zone ventilation. Zhao
et al. (2003) proposed occupied density (OD) and evaluated
the total influence of contaminants over a finite period of
time using the integrated accessibility of contaminant source
(IACS) as the index in which the indoor occupant distribution
is considered. Kikuchi et al. (2003, 2004) proposed the
normalized concentration in the occupied zone (NC-OZ)
and calculated this index for several different ventilation
systems.
The various zones and indices above were all proposed
based on the civil construction environment and contaminant
characteristics, while zones and indices only for industrial
buildings are infrequent. However, in consideration of
the large space and centralized contaminants in industrial
buildings, dividing the occupied zone by height only for IAQ Fig. 1 Contaminant concentration distribution schematic diagram
in industrial buildings is clearly not suitable. Simultaneously, of a local ventilation system under different conditions (─ occupied
as the centralized contaminants emitted during industrial zone; ─ breathing zone)
Wang et al. / Building Simulation
concentrations of the breathing zone and of the occupied
zone have no significant difference, that is, the above indices
of each region are very similar. However, due to the different
contaminant concentration distributions, the control effect
of the local ventilation system on IAQ shown in Fig. 1(a) is
different from that shown in Fig. 1(b). Compared with
Fig. 1(a), the workers in Fig. 1(b) are more vulnerable to the
occupational diseases due to exposure to the contaminant
for a longer time on a larger area. When the flow field is
disturbed by obstacles, the contaminants in Fig. 1(b) have a
better chance of escaping into the occupied zone than those
in Fig. 1(a) (Robinson and Ingham 1996).
In this paper, the concept of a target zone is defined
to describe the contaminant diffusion region in an indoor
environment. The size of the target zone can be determined
according to the spatial concentration distributions of each
case. Most of the contaminants are located in the target zone,
and the contaminant concentration gradient outside the zone
is substantially zero. Under the consideration of the same
contaminant emission amount, the smaller the target zone
area is, the smaller the contaminant diffusion extent is. A small
target zone also causes a high probability for the operators to
avoid that region. Based on the target zone, the normalized
concentration in the target zone (NC-TZ) is proposed to
evaluate the control effect of the local ventilation system in
industrial buildings on IAQ.
Suppose there is a local contaminant source in an
industrial building, and that a local ventilation system is
employed to remove the contaminant. The normalized
concentration in the target zone (NC-TZ) is then defined as
Cs - Ca
Ct = (1)
Cs - C
where Ct is the NC-TZ and it is non-dimensional; Cs is the
contaminant concentration at the source (kg/m3); Ca is the
mean contaminant concentration in the target zone (kg/m3);
and C is the mean contaminant concentration of the whole
room (kg/m3). The range of Ca is C to Cs. Thus, we can
define the following properties for the NC-TZ:
0 £ Ct £ 1 (2)
Cs - Cs
lim Ct = =0 (3)
Ca Cs
Cs - C
Cs - C
lim C t = =1 (4)
Ca  C Cs - C
When the mean contaminant concentration in the target
zone approaches the contaminant concentration at the source
(Ct → 0), the control effect on IAQ of the local ventilation
system increases gradually with the centralization of the
3
contaminant. When the mean contaminant concentration
in the target zone approaches the mean contaminant con-
centration of the whole room (Ct→1), the control effect
on IAQ decreases gradually with the decentralization of the
contaminant.
Besides a high capture efficiency, the NC-TZ should be
reduced as far as possible when the contaminants are strongly
toxic and the operation time is long, for the sake of ensuring
the operators’ health. Conversely, when the contaminants
are less toxic and the operation time is short, it is not necessary
to reduce the NC-TZ, as a low NC-TZ requires high energy
consumption.
3 Characteristics and applicability of normalized
concentration in the target zone (NC-TZ)
To reveal the characteristics of NC-TZ, contaminant con-
centration distributions under a push–pull ventilation system,
as an example of a local ventilation system, with different
flow rates and distances between the push and pull hoods
are analysed using a numerical technique. This paper also
discusses cases with different obstacle positions in the flow
field to prove its applicability and compares these cases using
CRE, NC-OZ and capture efficiency in different cases.
3.1 Numerical technique
FLUENT 6.3 as the simulation tool was employed here to
study the NC-TZ. To guarantee the veracity of the results,
the method based on realizable k–ε model (Lateb et al. 2013;
Chen 1995) and semi-implicit method for pressure linked
equations (SIMPLE) algorithm (Li and Peter 2011) were
validated with the experimental data from Ojima (2002), as
shown in Fig. 2. In this experiment, the open faces of the
push unit and the pull unit were 1 m (W) × 0.5 m (H) and
0.9 m (W) × 1 m (H), respectively, and the distance between
these units was 2.5 m. The vertical distance of the centre line
of the uniform flow was 1.25 m from the floor. An aluminium
working table with dimensions of 0.7 m (W) × 0.9 m (D) ×
0.8 m (H) was placed in the middle of the uniform flow field,
exactly midway between the push unit and the pull unit. A
welding face shield was used to represent a human head and
was placed about 1.6 m in height to represent slight slouching.
Alcohol vapour was generated from liquid ethanol with
filtered dilution air at a flow rate of 20 L/min, which was placed
in the centre of the working table. The sampling points of
the ethanol concentration were ① the breathing zone (45 cm
above the working table), ② directly above the outlet for
the ethanol vapour (17 cm above the work table and 50 cm
from the chest of the dummy worker) and ③–⑤ on the top
plate of the pull unit. The solver settings in the validation were
almost the same as for the research cases. The differences
4 Wang et al. / Building Simulation
Fig. 2 Validation study of the contaminant concentration distri-
bution in the flow field with a push–pull ventilation system, where
C1 is the experimental contaminant concentration (kg/m3) and C2 is
the simulation contaminant concentration (kg/m3)
between the validation study and the research cases were the
size, grid and boundary conditions, which do not impact
the validation for the realizable k–ε model and SIMPLE
algorithm. The results indicated that the deviations in the
contaminant concentration with a supply velocity of 0.8 m/s
and no flow from behind at points ①, ②, ③, ④ and ⑤
were 12.75%, 5.95%, 15.23%, 18.39% and 14.52%, respectively.
It was observed that the concordance is great.
In this investigation, a three-dimensional room ventilated
by the push–pull ventilation system was studied as a simplified
industrial building model, as shown in Fig. 3. The push
hood and the pull hood were set opposite each other so as
to create uniform horizontal flow between them. The open
faces of them were 1 m (W) × 1 m (H), and the whole area
of the pull hood with a flange was 1.4 m (W) × 1.4 m (H).
The room was 12 m (L) × 10 m (W) × 5 m (H) with windows
over the floor at a height of 1 m. A formaldehyde working
table with dimensions of 0.8 m (L) × 0.8 m (W) × 0.5 m (H)
was placed in the middle of the uniform flow field at a height
Fig. 3 The simulation model schematic diagram
of 0.2 m, exactly midway between the push hood and the
pull hood. Formaldehyde was emitted from the upper surface
of the table at a flow rate of 0.02 kg/s, that is, a velocity of
0.022 m/s. A worker of 1.7 m tall was assumed to be standing
beside the table.
During the study, the species transport model, the
realizable k–ε model and the SIMPLE algorithm were used
to simulate the contaminant motion process. All of the cases
were conducted in a steady state and room temperature,
so thermal effects were not considered here. As the model
room is a section of a whole building, the windows and the
front and back walls in yellowish were set to pressure inlet,
and the push and pull openings were set to velocity inlet in
different cases. Other building envelopes were set to wall.
The turbulent intensity was set to 10% (Cao and Meyers
2015). The second-order upwind was chosen to prevent false
diffusion phenomena.
The mesh of the model room was generated by the
software GAMBIT 2.4.6. Mesh independence was studied for
the basic model with five different grid cell numbers varying
from 0.3 million to 2.8 million, as shown in Fig. 4. The results
of the formaldehyde concentration curves indicated that the
concentration curves at 0.3 million and 0.7 million differed
from the others in various degrees and that 1.2 million to
2.8 million tended to be similar. Thus 1.2 million was used
to analyse the NC-TZ.
3.2 Results and discussion
According to the flow ratio method (Howell et al. 1985),
the supply flow rate Qs was 1559 m3/h, and the exhaust flow
rate Qe was 9953 m3/h under the ultimate flow ratio when
the distance between the push hood and the pull hood (L)
was 4 m. To analyse the NC-TZ characteristics, Qe ranged
Fig. 4 Contaminant distribution in front of the pull hood of 0.1 m
with five grid cell numbers
Wang et al. / Building Simulation 5

from 0 m3/h to 19906 m3/h, and L ranged from 2 m to 4 m,
as presented in Table 1. The region of the target zone (RTZ) in
each case was confirmed by the contaminant concentration
distribution, and the capture efficiency ηCE and the NC-TZ
Ct are also listed in Table 1.
In actual industrial production process, because of the
limitation of process conditions, obstacles, including operator
and facility, may be found in the flow field frequently. For
the NC-TZ application study, an obstacle with dimensions
of 0.6 m (L) × 0.2 m (W) × 1.7 m (H) at the different positions
was considered, and Fig. 7 shows the top view of each
position. The RTZ for Case 19 to Case 21 were confirmed
by the contaminant concentration distribution. The ηCE, the
contamination removal efficiency (CRE) ηCRE, the normalized
concentration in the occupied zone (NC-OZ) Co and the
NC-TZ Ct are also listed in Table 1.
The region of the target zone in this investigation
can be determined according to the spatial concentration
distributions. Considering the quantity of numerical cases,
a convenient method to determine the region of the target
zone RTZ was employed here and Case 12 was presented
as an example (Fig. 5): (1) Find the typical planes (for both
the XOY-plane and ZOY-plane) on which the contaminant
diffusion region is the maxima. Comparing all the planes
around the whole room (for both the XOY-plane and ZOY-
plane), it is found that the contaminant diffusion regions
on both (XOY-plane, Z = 0.71 m) and (ZOY-plane, X = 5 m)
shown in Fig. 5(a) are the maxima. (2) Determine the range
of diffusion of pollutants diffusion region along X, Y, Z axis
on typical planes. In Case 12, the contaminant range along
X, Y axis on (XOY-plane, Z = 0.71 m) is 4.65 – 5.35 m and
7.60 – 10.10 m, respectively. And the contaminant range
along Y, Z axis on (ZOY-plane, X = 5 m) is 7.60 – 10.10 m
and 0.22 – 0.91 m, respectively. Finally，the range is RTZ which
is listed in Table 1 and the target zone is shown in Fig. 5(b).
The definitions of ηCE, ηCRE and Co are listed as follows:
ηCE is defined as the fraction of contaminants captured
by the exhaust hood(s):
Qe
ηCE = (5)
Q
where Qe is the mass flow rate of the contaminant directly
captured by the pull hood (kg/s) and Q is the total mass
flow rate of the contaminant released from the contaminant
source (kg/s).

Table 1 The specifications and the results for each case

Qs Qe L ηCE ηCRE Co RTZ Ct
(m3/h) (m3/h) (m) (%) (%) (%) (%)
X(m) Y(m) Z(m)
Case 1 1559 0 4 0 100
Case 2 1559 332 4 28.945 3.50–6.00 7.60–10.10 0.00–1.60 96.062
Case 3 1559 664 4 53.927 4.20–5.80 7.60–10.10 0.00–1.40 94.404
Case 4 1559 995 4 68.831 4.40–5.60 7.60–10.10 0.00–1.35 92.919
Case 5 1559 1327 4 82.029 4.40–5.50 7.60–10.10 0.00–1.30 91.003
Case 6 1559 1669 4 90.208 4.50–5.50 7.60–10.10 0.00–1.25 90.079
Case 7 1559 3318 4 99.634 4.60–5.40 7.60–10.10 0.00–1.10 89.164
Case 8 1559 4977 4 100 4.65–5.35 7.60–10.10 0.05–1.10 87.484
Case 9 1559 6636 4 100 4.65–5.35 7.60–10.10 0.10–1.05 86.439
Case 10 1559 8294 4 100 4.65–5.35 7.60–10.10 0.15–1.05 85.495
Case 11 1559 9953 4 100 4.65–5.35 7.60–10.10 0.20–0.92 84.658
Case 12 1559 13271 4 100 4.65–5.35 7.60–10.10 0.22–0.91 84.102
Case 13 1559 16589 4 100 4.65–5.35 7.60–10.10 0.22–0.90 83.734
Case 14 1559 19906 4 100 4.65–5.35 7.60–10.10 0.23–0.90 83.411
Case 15 1559 9953 3.5 100 4.65–5.35 7.60–9.85 0.25–0.90 82.956
Case 16 1559 9953 3 100 4.65–5.35 7.60–9.60 0.25–0.85 81.313
Case 17 1559 9953 2.5 100 4.66–5.34 7.60–9.35 0.30–0.80 80.778
Case 18 1559 9953 2 100 4.67–5.33 7.60–9.10 0.35–0.75 79.115
Case 19 1559 9953 4 100 18.904 2.512 4.65–5.35 7.60–10.10 0.20–0.92 84.658
Case 20 1559 9953 4 100 18.335 2.505 4.62–5.38 7.60–10.10 0.05–1.68 95.652
Case 21 1559 9953 4 100 18.675 2.512 4.65–5.35 7.60–10.10 0.20–0.92 85.121
Note: The centre of the contaminant source is located at (5.00, 7.20, 0.45).
6 Wang et al. / Building Simulation
Fig. 5 The size and location of the target zone in Case 12. (a) Contaminant distributions and the target zone at the typical sections (Z =
0.71 m and X = 5 m); (b) schematic diagram of the target zone. 1-Push hood; 2-Contaminant source; 3-Pull hood; 4-Contaminant; ─ The
target zone
ηCRE reflects the capacity for removing contaminants,
and the definition formula of ηCRE can be written as follows:
Ce - C c
ηCRE =
C - Cc
where Ce is the contaminant concentration of the exhaust
air (kg/m3); Cc is the contaminant concentration of the supply
air (kg/m3); and C is the mean contaminant concentration
of the whole room (kg/m3).
Co is proposed to evaluate the concentration degree of
the occupied zone, and the definition formula of Co can be
written as follows:
Cn - C c
Co =
C - Cc
where Cn is the mean contaminant concentration in the
occupied zone (kg/m3). Occupied zone is defined as the space
in the room below 2 m.
3.2.1 Analysis of the characteristics of the normalized
concentration in the target zone
The data from Cases 1–14 in Table 1 were plotted in the curve
shown in Fig. 6(a). When Qs remained at 1559 m3/h, the ηCE
of the push–pull ventilation system increased as Qe increased
before reaching 4977 m3/h. Simultaneously, the Ct decreased
as Qe increased. These results show that the control effect of
the push–pull ventilation system on the contaminant and
IAQ increased gradually as the exhaust flow rate increased.
This increase was observed because the increase of the exhaust
flow rate in this process could lead to the centralization of
the contaminant. It was also beneficial for the contaminant
capture of the exhaust flow. When Qe reached 4977 m3/h,
the contaminant had already been captured completely,
and the ηCE reached the peak value of 100%. After this stage,
the ηCE remained unchanged, while the Ct continued to
(6) decrease as Qe increased. These results indicate that the
control effect of the push–pull ventilation system on the
contaminant remained unchanged, while the control effect
on IAQ still gradually increased as the exhaust flow rate
increased. This phenomenon occurred because the increasing
exhaust flow rate still centralized the contaminant. Although
this centralization could not affect the capture efficiency in
this process, it reduced the range of the contaminant effect
on the environment. As the velocity decreased rapidly in the
confluence flow field, the increasing exhaust flow rate had a
tiny impact on the flow field. Thus, the NC-TZ changed
(7)
more slowly in the process than before.
Data from Cases 11, 15–18 in Table 1 were plotted in the
curve shown in Fig. 6(b). It could be observed that when L
decreased, ηCE remained unchanged, while the Ct continued
to decrease. These results indicate that the control effect
of the push–pull ventilation system on the contaminant
remained unchanged, while the control effect on IAQ still
gradually increased as the distance decreased. Similar to the
exhaust flow rate, decreasing the distance also centralize the
contaminant. Although this centralization could not affect
the capture efficiency in this process, it reduced the range
of the contaminant effect on the environment.
In conclusion, the capture efficiency is an index to
evaluate the control effect on contaminants. Regardless of
the contaminant distribution in an indoor environment,
attention is paid to whether the contaminants have been
removed by the exhaust system. However, the NC-TZ is
determined by the contaminant distribution in an indoor
environment. Even if the contaminants are captured
Wang et al. / Building Simulation 7

Fig. 6 Comparison of the capture efficiency and the NC-TZ

versus the exhaust flow rate and the distance between the push
and the pull hoods

completely, changes in the velocity field still can change the

contaminant concentration distribution and IAQ. Thus, the
NC-TZ is an index to evaluate the control effect on IAQ.
During the ventilation design of industrial buildings, both
the capture efficiency and the evaluation index for IAQ
should be considered, especially for buildings with a toxic Fig. 7 Contaminant distributions and the target zone at the section
of X = 5 m in Cases 19–21. ─ The target zone; ▄ Obstacle
contaminant source.

3.2.2 Analysis of the normalized concentration in the target

zone application
The data from Cases 19–21 in Table 1 revealed that the
ηCE was 100% for the different obstacle positions, that is,
the control effect of the push–pull ventilation system on
the contaminant in these three cases were the same and
satisfactory.
However, Fig. 7 clearly shows that the contaminant
concentration distributions were different in these cases,
while the contamination removal efficiency (CRE) ηCRE and
the normalized concentration in the occupied zone (NC-OZ)
Co were nearly the same. This observation implies that the
CRE and NC-OZ were not suitable completely to reflect the
differences of the control effects of the local ventilation
system in industrial buildings on IAQ for these different
cases. The NC-TZ recognized that the Ct in Case 20 was
obviously greater than that in both Case 19 and Case 21. The
results show that in the case with the obstacle upstream of
the contaminant source, the control effect of the push–pull
ventilation system on environmental quality was inferior to
that in the case with the obstacle downstream or to the side
of the contaminant source. Thus, NC-TZ could evaluate
the control effect on IAQ of the local ventilation system in
industrial buildings more exactly.
8 Wang et al. / Building Simulation
4 Conclusions
According to the characteristics of industrial buildings, such
as large spaces, centralized contaminant sources and strongly
toxic contaminants, the various existing zones and indices
cannot clearly reflect the control effect on indoor air quality
(IAQ) of the local ventilation systems in industrial buildings.
The target zone is therefore defined to describe the contaminant
diffusion region in an indoor environment. Based on the
target zone, the normalized concentration in the target zone
(NC-TZ) is proposed as an evaluation index. The following
conclusions may be drawn from this study:
i. The NC-TZ is non-dimensional and it ranges from 0
to 1 according to its definition. When the NC-TZ tends
toward 0, the control effect of the local ventilation system on
IAQ is more satisfactory. When the NC-TZ tends toward 1,
the control effect on IAQ is less satisfactory.
ii. When the capture efficiency is 100%, NC-TZ decreases
as the exhaust flow rate increases or as the distance between
the push and pull hoods decreases. Therefore, under the same
capture efficiency, changing the characteristics of the local
ventilation system can still result in a different control effect
on IAQ.
iii. NC-TZ with an obstacle upstream of the contaminant
source is obviously greater than that with an obstacle
downstream or to the side of the contaminant source, while
the capture efficiency, the contamination removal efficiency
(CRE) and the normalized concentration in the occupied
zone (NC-OZ) under these conditions are nearly the same.
This result indicates that NC-TZ can evaluate the control
effect on IAQ of the local ventilation system in industrial
building more exactly.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Science Fund for
Distinguished Young Scholars of China (No. 51425803) and
the Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (No. 51238010).
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