Contaminant Spread Modeling

Sponsored by Defense Threat Reduction Agency

This five-year project aims to model the transport of harmful biological and chemical compounds in urban environment using different modeling techniques, such as computational fluid dynamics and multizone modeling for indoor airflow, Modelica-based modeling for HVAC system and control. The project is led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and in collaboration with many federal research laboratories and industry partners. In response to the COVID pandemic, our team has investigated various mitigation strategies, including 1) placement of portable air cleaners in a conference room; 2) HVAC operation strategies for office buildings during COVID and their energy consumptions. 

Comparison of the streamlines, colored by the local velocity magnitude, coming from the portable air cleaner (PAC) inlet in (a) the fully occupied (F) and (b) the socially distanced (D) room setups for the PAC setting 1BL. (Castellini et al. 2021)

Project Team

Wangda Zuo, Ph.D. 
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
wangda.zuo@colorado.edu

Jake Castellini, M.S.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
jaca6283@colorado.edu

Cary Faulkner 
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
cary.faulkner@colorado.edu

Publications

Journal Articles

• C. A. Faulkner, J. E. Castellini, W. Zuo, D. M. Lorenzetti, M. D. Sohn 2022. “Investigation of HVAC Operation Strategies for Office Buildings During COVID-19 Pandemic.” Building and Environment, 207 (B), pp. 108519.  
• J. E. Castellini, C. A. Faulkner, W. Zuo, D. M. Lorenzetti, M. D. Sohn 2022. “Assessing the Use of Portable Air Cleaners for Reducing Exposure to Airborne Diseases in a Conference Room with Thermal Stratification.” Building and Environment, 207 (B), pp. 108441.

Conference Proceedings

• C. A. Faulkner, J. E. Castellini Jr., W. Zuo, D. M. Lorenzetti, M. D. Sohn 2021. "MERV 13 Filtration for Office Buildings During COVID-19 Pandemic." Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (ISHVAC 2021), Seoul, South Korea (Virtual Conference), November 24-26, 2021.
• C. A. Faulkner, D. S. Jankowski, W. Zuo, P. Epple, M. D. Sohn 2021. "A Novel Physics-informed Algorithm for Training AI Models to Predict Indoor Airflow." Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (ISHVAC 2021), Seoul, South Korea (Virtual Conference), November 24-26, 2021.

Presentations

• C. A. Faulkner 2021 "A Novel Physics-informed Algorithm for Training AI Models to Predict Indoor Airflow", ISHVAC 2021 Conference, November.
• C. A. Faulkner 2021 "MERV 13 Filtration for Office Buildings During COVID-19 Pandemic", ISHVAC 2021 Conference, November.