Effectiveness of Purging in an Air-Conditioned Office
Building in Singapore
SC Sekhar, D
Cheong, TK Wai and Phua B Leng1
Department of Building, National University of Singapore, 4
Architecture Drive, Singapore 117566,
1Former Graduate Student
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Abstract
This paper investigates the effectiveness of a
Purging System in a high-rise office building in Singapore with the aim of
improving indoor air quality. The study initially adopts a continuous
monitoring concept to investigate the impact of a daily purging operation
on pollutant concentration levels at the low, middle and high floors of
the office building. Pollutants
investigated include formaldehyde, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and
total volatile organic compounds (TVOC).
This is then followed by purging experiments using sulphur
hexafluoride in three different configurations to obtain various
ventilation parameters. Finally, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
simulations using FLUENT software are used to corroborate the results. It
is shown that purging is effective in reducing indoor TVOC and carbon
dioxide concentration, and should be executed at times when the lowest
carbon monoxide concentration is registered outdoors. The minimum duration of purging is observed to be 12 minutes,
even with a purging fan having a capacity of six air-change-per-hour.
Key words: indoor air quality, sick building
syndrome, purging system, continuous monitoring, computational fluid
dynamics, FLUENT.
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