CFD for health and safety

Air conditioning and pollution control is particularly important at places where hazardous chemicals evaporate or combustion processes occur. Ventilation can save lifes, but how can you be sure that enough air movement is provided by the hoods? Computational Fluid Dynamics (=CFD) calculates air flow and visualises potential health and safety hazards. CFD is successfully employed to investigate generation and transport of pollutants (explosive, toxic, or flammable gases) and dust or pathogen particles within:

• Industrial facilities (metallurgical, food, pharmaceutical, chemical plants)
• Business spaces, schools, hospitals…
• Ventilation ducts, shafts, tunnels
• Mines
• Residential homes and buildings

In the example below, the exposure of an operator to gases escaping from the fume hood is analysed. The fume hood generates an underpressure to remove gases, but this is influenced by the active ventilation system in the room, position of the operator, open or closed doors and windows. The technique allows to investigate different scenarios without the need of experiments. Keep your operators safe by detecting dangerous situations before they occur, and modifying the set-ups accordingly.

This technique also applies to validating ventilation in the framework of the corona pandemic (covid-19). The flow of virus laden particles can be simulated in a similar fashion, to avoid spread between work spaces or between customers and service providers.