Department Seminar of Shar Grusberd - Biomimetic Active Ventilation of Public Indoors

School of Mechanical Engineering Seminar
Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 14.00
Wolfson Building of Mechanical Engineering, Room 206

Biomimetic Active Ventilation of Public Indoors

Shahar Grossbard

PhD student of Gil Marom¹ and David Elad²

¹School of Mechanical Engineering, ²Department of Biomedical Engineering

Ventilation of indoor spaces is required for continuously maintaining acceptable air quality and a thermally comfort environment while removing pollutants, and other hazardous substances. With estimates suggesting that people spend up to 90% of their time indoors, either at home, working, or commuting, ventilating indoors is essential. The COVID-19 pandemic also raised the topic of ventilating crowded indoors to the frontline health concerns, especially regarding ventilation of classrooms. We developed a new biologically inspired concept of active ventilation for healthy interior environments. This new paradigm mimics the concept of human lung ventilation where internal air is continuously refreshed with the external environment. Here, we present computational simulations of biomimetic active ventilation (BAV) of indoors with cycling movement of modules in the form of flaps or caps, which are installed on the window openings. The finite volume method was used with a dynamic overset mesh for a cubic room domain with two window openings. The continuity, Navier-Stokes, concentration, and energy equations were solved in the commercial code Ansys Fluent. Simulations of two- and three-dimensional models for different geometries and dynamic movement properties of the modules demonstrated air motions in most parts of the room with good air exchange between the internal and external air. Specific combinations of geometry and working parameters revealed excellent air replacement in most of the room. The performance of the BAV is evaluated and compared to traditional ventilation and HVAC systems for their efficiency.

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