2019 Volume 10 Issue 2 Pages 41-44
In university chemical laboratories, many types of chemicals are used for various purposes. Laboratories are workplaces in which complex airflows are formed because many experimenters work simultaneously and arbitrarily and the laboratory layout also frequently varies, according to their own experimental purposes and plans, and such complex airflows can inadvertently cause experimenters to become exposed to chemicals in laboratories. To prevent experimenters from being exposed to hazardous chemicals, the dynamics of the airflow in the laboratory need to be precisely analyzed.
In this study, we elucidated how experimenter actions impact airflow using 1/10-scale mockup laboratory by Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) analysis, a method for directly observing of airflow. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation showed overall similar airflow profiles to the PIV analysis, but it failed to reproduce the location, number, and size of airflow vortices. We also conducted an experimental analysis for identifying the influence of walking on airflow by PIV and discovered that the turbulence by walking influences the airflow particularly in the vicinity of walking locus. These results suggest that the direct observation by PIV analysis is an effective method for the thorough discussion of the complex and unsteady airflow in the laboratory.
