Project Outline

During the SAQN scoping study “Exploring how sources, behaviour and mitigation strategies influence Indoor Air Quality: A Pilot Study”, initial CFD modelling has been carried out, involving hydrodynamics and pollutant dispersion and simulations related to the DOMESTIC facility, originally hosted at the University of Chester. The dispersion of pollutants, resulting from cooking activities, was modelled using a scalar diffusion approach, where extra transport equations were included in the model to track the pollutant concentration within the domain. This approach has been proven suitable for modelling gas phase dispersion of CO2 for instance, but when looking at particulate matter the comparison has been less favourable. In particular, the rate of increase of pollutant concentration in the main cooking area between experiments and simulations (red and blue curves) has been largely different. This is a consequence of the very simplified approach used to model pollutant dispersion that does not consider several physical phenomena, as, for instance, the Brownian effects on the particle motion. The aim of this project is to use Lagrangian Stochastic Methods to track the particulate motion within the flow field and to perform this for several different pollutants resulting from different indoor activities. Indeed, further validation data is required to better characterise the pollutant sources, and these will be obtained from the relocated DOMESTIC facility at University of York.  

STFC Capabilities used
Related Scoping Study
Resources
Project dates

Jul 2022 – May 2023

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