title: CFD investigation of room ventilation for improved operation of a downdraft table: novel concepts.
abstract: We report a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study of containment of airborne hazardous materials in a ventilated room containing a downdraft table. Specifically, we investigated the containment of hazardous airborne material obtainable under a range of ventilation configurations. The desirable ventilation configuration should ensure excellent containment of the hazardous material released from the workspace above the downdraft table. However, increased airflow raises operation costs, so the airflow should be as low as feasible without compromising containment. The airflow is modeled using Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes equations with a high Reynolds number k-epsilon turbulence model. CFD predictions are examined for several ventilation configurations. Based on this study, we find that substantial improvements in containment are possible concurrent with reduction in airflow, compared with the existing design of ventilation configuration.
authors.affiliation: Indoor Environment Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA. bjayaraman@lbl.gov
authors.forename: Buvaneswari
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jayaraman
authors.forename: Astrid H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Kristoffersen
authors.forename: Elizabeth U
authors.initials: EU
authors.lastname: Finlayson
authors.forename: Ashok J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Gadgil
mesh_terms: D000392:Air Movements; D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D015386:Hazardous Substances; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014691:Ventilation
chemical_list: D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational; D015386:Hazardous Substances