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.