Large Eddy Simulation of Air Escape through a Hospital Isolation Room Single Hinged Doorway—Validation by Using Tracer Gases and Simulated Smoke Videos

Saarinen, Pekka E.; Kalliomäki, Petri; Tang, Julian W.; Koskela, Hannu

The test case was a simple isothermal scenario without ventilation, but including single hinged-door-opening and closing and a nurse passing through the doorway. Thus, the flow interactions arising from the moving door and human, alone, are presented, without any interference from any other sources. Addition of other factors such as ventilation, temperature differences between the rooms, or negative room pressure (i.e. unbalanced ventilation) would be a relatively simple next step. Flow structures near the doorway of the mock-up were examined and recorded in some detail by dosing smoke in one room and videoing its spread into the other room. Techniques were developed to construct similar simulated smoke videos from the LES results, enabling direct comparisons with the experimental videos. The ultimate purpose was to test the capability of time-resolved LES method to reproduce the full-scale air flows present in a real isolation room. The simulation was run on a standard workstation.