How safe is it to neglect thermal radiation in indoor environment modeling with high ventilation rates?

Typical heat sources in indoor environments include humans, electrical devices, and computers. The number of such sources in operating room environments is even higher due to the presence of surgical staff members and medical equipment. The exchange of thermal energy between indoor surfaces and air is usually modelled by considering contributions from both radiation and convection. Complete heat transfer simulations in indoor environments are normally difficult since radiation models have a tendency to generate numerical instability and, hence, problems with convergent solutions. In the past, thermal radiation influence on indoor airflow movement and contaminant distribution was rarely addressed. This study therefore focused on evaluating the influence of radiative heat transfer in an operating room with 40 air changes per hour.
For the purpose of the current study, an identical case with and without considering the radiative part of heat transfer was simulated and compared. In both simulated cases, the numerical results have shown negligible changes in terms of indoor temperature and air velocity, and thus contaminant distribution. It was also observed that temperature differences between heat-emitting surfaces were negligible. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that it is safe to disregard the radiative part of heat transfer in indoor air simulations with high ventilation rates and heat transfer can here be modelled as pure convection.