Computational Modeling and Validation of Aerosol Deposition in Ventilation Ducts

In fire models, the accurate prediction of aerosol & soot concentrations in the gas phase and aerosol & soot deposition thicknesses in the condensed phase is important for a wide range of applications, including human egress calculations, heat transfer in compartment fires, and forensic reconstructions of fires. During a fire, in addition to soot transport by advection and diffusion, a significant amount of soot can be deposited on surfaces due to various mechanisms. As a first approach of quantifying aerosol deposition predictions under non-reacting flow conditions, this study identifies important parameters related to aerosol deposition under various flow conditions and compares predicted aerosol deposition quantities to experimentally measured data. The computational tool used in this study was the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) fire model, Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). Model predictions are compared to measured aerosol deposition K.J. Overholt National Institute of Standards and Technology 100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 8661 Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA E-mail: [email protected] J.E. Floyd Hughes Associates, Inc. 3610 Commerce Dr. Suite 817 Baltimore, MD 21227 USA E-mail: [email protected] O.A. Ezekoye Department of Mechanical Engineering The University of Texas at Austin 204 E. Dean Keeton Street Austin, TX 78712, USA Tel.: +1-512-471-3085 Fax: +1-512-471-1045 E-mail: [email protected] velocities for various sizes of monodisperse fluorescent particles and various air velocities at the ceiling, wall, and floor of a ventilation duct.