The following report documents the design and development of an automatic vent closure system for residential exhaust systems. The report discusses the rationale behind the perceived need for such a system and defines the objectives of the design and development work with respect to these needs. A detailed account of the development of the design and construction of successive prototypes will be given along with a thorough description of the testing procedures employed to evaluate the operational characteristics of each prototype as their design was further refined and developed.
The Air Lock Floor and the Pressure Ring are two effective measures for control of air flow directions between rooms or zones in buildings. They create a pressure hierarchy that controls spread of pollutants. Here an example has been given for radon from a crawl space, odours from a bakery into a dwelling above and an isolation chamber with a leaky facade. The Air Lock floor can operate with a 7 W fan and at the same time extractthe normal dwelling ventilation flowrate. Used in the ground floor, the Air Lock Floor results in a warmer floor and contributes to energy savings.
Measurements of interzone airflow and movement of aerosol particles were carried out in an environmental chamber. SF tracer gas and oil-smoke particles were used for this work. A series of measurements were conducted to investigate the effect of parameters such as interzone temperature difference and size of opening on the flow of aerosol particles. The particle deposition rate on thesurfaces of the chamber together with algorithms for interzonal particle flow through the openings were determined. Results were compared with those obtained using the tracer-gas.
A series of laboratory experiments are described which investigated the effect of surface roughness on the air flow characteristics of simple, straight-through, no-bend cracks with smooth and rough internal surfaces. Thecrack lengths, in the direction of flow, were 50.8mm and 76.2mm. For the rough cracks the roughness was simulated with two different grades of commercially available emery-cloth (grade 60 and 100). The effect of roughness on the reduction of air flowing through a crack is also discussed.
This paper is concerned with measurement of air and aerosol particle exchange efficiency in a single zone chamber. Aerosol particles and tracer gases were injected into the chamber and their concentrations were monitored as a funtion of time. The chamber was provided with supply and exhaust terminals which allowed various airflow and particle patterns (e.g. piston flow, displacement flow) to be investigated. The effect of airflow pattern on deposition rate of aerosol particles on the surfaces of the chamber was determined.