Migration of traffic pollutants into mechanically-ventilated buildings

Abstract

Air pollutant from vehicular exhaust is a serious issue in many cities in the world. Ventilation of a building with poor ambient air quality will contribute to higher level of pollutants in the indoor environment. Consequently, it is of great importance to quantify the migration of traffic pollutants to indoor environment, since people are spending up to 90% of their time indoors. Hence, the main objective of this research is to determine the amount of outdoor pollutants migrated into mechanical-ventilated buildings. This research work adopted both the mathematical and physical modeling along with field study. A mathematical indoor air quality model was developed to predict the indoor concentration of traffic pollution and compared with the field data. This model predicts the indoor pollutanta??s concentration very well. This is followed by physical modeling in the wind tunnel to evaluate the effect of migration of pollutants from vehicular exhaust on the air quality in building at close proximity to roads. Finally, the mathematical model is used to predict the indoor concentration of traffic pollutants from the roads. The predicted results using the mathematical model were in good correlation with the results from the wind tunnel test.