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Relationships Between Indoor and Outdoor Contaminants in Mechanically Ventilated Buildings
Author(s) -
Ekberg Lars E.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
indoor air
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.387
H-Index - 99
eISSN - 1600-0668
pISSN - 0905-6947
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0668.1996.t01-3-00005.x
Subject(s) - environmental science , indoor air , airflow , contamination , pollutant , indoor air quality , ventilation (architecture) , air change , sink (geography) , environmental engineering , environmental chemistry , meteorology , chemistry , ecology , engineering , geography , biology , mechanical engineering , cartography , organic chemistry
It is shown that comparing measured indoor and outdoor contaminant concentrations can be misleading if the concentrations vary with time and if the averaging periods are too short. In this article an alternative methodology aimed at estimating the internal source and sink effects in mechanically ventilated buildings is described. The methodology is based on both the results from continuous measurements, and calculations under transient conditions. The relative importance of indoor sources and outdoor sources is established by a comparison of the measured indoor concentration and a calculated indoor concentration of a compound. Furthermore, dynamic calculations are used to investigate how the indoor concentrations of contaminants originating outdoors and contaminants emitted from indoor sources are influenced by temporal reductions of the airflow rate. Reducing the outdoor airflow rate during periods with high outdoor concentrations can significantly reduce the indoor levels of pollutants for situations in which the outdoor sources are more important than the indoor sources.