Use of Air Infiltration in Swine Housing Ventilation System Design

The objective of this research was to develop and analyze the procedure for using recent air infiltration (AI) data collected from commercial swine finishing rooms (SFRs) in the design of negative pressure mechanical ventilation systems (VSs). Air infiltration is an integral part of any ventilation process. Infiltration reduces the pressure differential across planned inlets and at very low pressure differences, cold air jets may drop directly on the animals causing significant discomfort. In this article, a design procedure is proposed for swine housing ventilation systems with the influence of air infiltration included. The method was used on one SFR for which air infiltration data was collected by in-field testing. The airjet throw, jet momentum number, a newly developed coverage factor, and Archimedes number were used to assess the influence of infiltration on predicted air-jet and fresh-air distribution and to help guide the design of planned inlets in SFR VSs with known infiltration. The analysis completed quantifies the severity of AI on air-jet and air distribution performance, and suggests that for the analysis room to ventilate properly requires a 50% reduction in AI levels beyond field measured curtain and fan infiltration. The analysis completed suggests a method for systematically planning three-dimensional ceiling inlet placement and operation and provides design guidance for new ceiling inlets suitable for SFR VSs.