Pollutant re-introduction investigation for occupational risk reduction (PRIORR)

Examples of possible pollution transfer from one room to another via outdoor air are numerous: emissions of gas and fine particles from ventilated enclosures of research facilities on a campus, downdraft of smoke from the chimneys of a production site toward office buildings, re-introduction of rooftop emissions through the ventilation system within the same building, etc. Instances of chronic pollution transfer exist according to field feedback, but are rarely reported in the literature, likely due to the lack of predictability of outdoor pollutant dispersion. The pollutant transfer is generally noticeable a posteriori in cases of odour pollution or abnormal occurrences of symptoms or illnesses. In this ongoing research project, we propose the setup of an experimental benchmark that will provide insights into the dynamics of pollutant dispersion in and around a building. It is based on reduced-scale wind tunnel measurements using a passive tracer gas. The building under study is equipped with a mechanical ventilation system, subjected to atmospheric wind conditions and exhaust pollutant generation. The results can be used as validation database for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to predict and mitigate possible occupational exposure to pollutants.