Personal Exposure to Contaminant Sources in Ventilated Rooms

Abstract

Three different tools for personal exposure assessment are presented. They are all able to consider the local influence of persons in ventilated rooms where concentration gradients prevail: A Breathing Thermal Manikin, a Computer Simulated Person, and a Trained Sensory Panel. The tools are applied on the two major room ventilation principles. A personal exposure model for a displacement ventilated room is proposed. Two new quantities describing the interaction between a person and the ventilation are defined. The findings clearly stress the need for an improved exposure assessment in cases where a contaminant source is located in the vicinity of persons. It is also shown that it is not sufficient to know the local concentration level of an empty room, the local impact of a person is distinct and should be considered in the exposure assessment.