Improvement of ventilation efficiency by changing the shape of glass partition in bathroom of apartment house

Abstract

In the bathroom, the spreading of contaminants may differ depending on whether the shower or toilet is used. The shower and toilet space separated by a glass partition, could affect the spread of contaminants. Computational fluid dynamics analyses were conducted to examine the ventilation efficiency achieved by the glass partition in the bathroom, while a resident was taking a shower and while using the toilet. The following cases were studied: (i) when the top part of the glass partition is open; (ii) when its bottom part is open; and (iii) when both its top and bottom part are open. The SVE3 and SVE6 (scale for ventilation effectiveness) indexes have shown that the condition with the bottom part of the glass partition being open was most effective as compared to the condition of it being not open when the shower and toilet are used. Faster removal of contaminants from the toilet under the condition with the bottom part of the glass partition being open was also observed. Our research has illustrated a suitable glass partition design for enhancing the ventilation efficiency in a bathroom with a shower and toilet to maintain household hygiene standard.

Keywords

Bathroom Ventilation efficiency Partition CFD Air pollution

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Korean Statistical Information Service, http://kosis.kr (accessed 2 February 2015).

Moon

Yoon

. Investigation of physical characteristics of houses and occupants’ behavioural factors for mould infestation in residential buildings. Indoor Built Environ 2010; 19: 57–64.

Yik

FWH

Sat

PSK

Niu

. Moisture generation through Chinese household activities. Indoor Built Environ 2004; 13: 115–131.

Kim

Park

Cheong

. Ventilation systems to prevent food odour spread in high-rise residential building. Indoor Built Environ 2012; 21: 304–316.

Kim

Bae

. Effect of air flow rates on concurrent supply and exhaust kitchen ventilation system. Indoor Built Environ 2016; 25: 180–190.

Lim

Lee

. A numerical study on the characteristics if flow field, temperature and concentration distribution according to changing the shape of separation plate of kitchen hood system. Energy Build 2008; 40: 175–184.

Delsante

. Derivation of capture efficiency of kitchen range hoods in a confined space. Build Environ 1996; 31: 461–468.

Ito

. Integrated numerical simulation with fungal spore deposition and subsequent fungal growth on bathroom wall surface. Indoor Built Environ 2013; 22: 881–896.

Tung

Tsai

. Influence of bathroom ventilation rates and toilet location on odor removal. Build Environ 2009; 44: 1810–1817.

10.

Tung

Shih

et al.

Experimental performance investigation of ventilation schemes in a private bathroom. Build Environ 2010; 45: 243–251.

11.

Lin

YJP

Tsai

. The push-type displacement ventilation in two series-connected chambers. Build Environ 2013; 62: 89–101.

12.

Lee

Awbi

. Effect of internal partitioning on indoor air quality of rooms with mixing ventilation-basic study. Build Environ 2004; 39: 127–141.

13.

Laverge

Pattyn

Janssens

. Performance assessment of residential mechanical exhaust ventilation systems dimensioned in accordance with Belgian, British, Dutch, French and ASHRAE standards. Build Environ 2013; 59: 177–186.

14.

ASHRAE. ASHRAE handbook HVAC application. Chap. 29: Ventilation of the industrial environment. Atlanta, GA: ASHRAE, 2003.

15.

Kwon YI and Hong KW. A study on the code of designs for residential mechanical ventilation system. In: Proceedings of the SAREK 2005 winter annual conference, 25 November 2005, Seoul, Korea, pp.97–103. (in Korean).

16.

Phillips

Wood

. On ventilation of a heated room through a single doorway. Build Environ 2004; 39: 241–253.

17.

Gao

Niu

. CFD study on micro-environment around human body and personalized ventilation. Build Environ 2004; 39: 795–805.

18.

Taghinia

Tahman

Siikonen

. Numerical simulation of airflow and temperature fields around an occupant in indoor environment. Energy Build 2015; 104: 199–207.

19.

Lockwood

Shah

. A new radiation solution method for incorporation in general combustion prediction procedures. Symp (Int) Combust 1981; 18: 1405–1414.

20.

ASHRAE. ASHRAE handbook fundamentals. Chap. 4: Heat transfer. Atlanta, GA: ASHRAE, 2009.

21.

Liu

Zhai

. Identification of appropriate CFD models for simulating aerosol particle and droplet indoor transport. Indoor Built Environ 2007; 16: 322–330.

22.

Kato

Murakami

. New ventilation efficiency scales based on spatial distribution of contaminant concentration aided by numerical simulation. ASHRAE Transact 1988; 94: 309–330.

23.

Sandberg

. What is ventilation efficiency? Build Environ 1981; 16: 123–135.

24.

Krajčík

Simone

Olesen

. Air distribution and ventilation effectiveness in an occupied room heated by warm air. Energy Build 2012; 55: 94–101.

25.

Cao

Sirén

Kilpeläinen

. Modelling and experimental study of performance of the protected occupied zone ventilation. Energy Build 2014; 68: 515–531.

26.

Cao

Awbi

Yao

et al.

A review of the performance of different ventilation and airflow distribution systems in building. Build Environ 2014; 73: 171–186.

27.

Sørensen

Nielsen

. Quality control of computational fluid dynamics in indoor environments. Indoor Air 2003; 13: 2–17.

28.

Zhang

Zhai

et al.

Evaluation of various turbulence models in predicting airflow and turbulence in enclosed environments by CFD: part-2: Comparison with experimental data from literature. HVAC&R Res 2007; 13: 871–886.

29.

Ito

Inthavong

Kurabuchi

et al.

CFD benchmark tests for indoor environmental problems: Part 1 Isothermal/non-isothermal flow in 2D and 3D room model. Int J Architect Eng Technol 2015; 2: 1–22.

30.

Ito

Inthavong

Kurabuchi

et al.

CFD benchmark tests for indoor environmental problems: Part 2 Cross-ventilation airflows and floor heating systems. Int J Architect Eng Technol 2015; 2: 23–49.