Three-Dimensional Flow Regimes and Heat Transfer Characteristics in Surgical Operating Theatre

Abstract

The recent advances in numerical methods and the vast development of computers had directed the designers to better development and modi cations to air ow pattern in air-conditioned rooms′ design. Extensive efforts are exerted to adequately predict the air velocity and turbulence intensity distributions in the room and to reduce the energy requirements and noise abatement to ultimately produce quite and energy efficient air conditioning systems. The present work fosters mathematical modeling techniques to primarily predict what happens in the air-conditioned surgical operating theatre in terms of flow regimes, heat transfer and interactions. The present work also demonstrates the effect of surgical operating theatre design and operational parameters on performance and heat transfer under various operating parameters. The governing equations of mass, momentum and energy are commonly expressed in a present finite difference form with source terms to represent pressure gradients, turbulence, viscous action, and heat transfer. A full three-dimensional computational schemes, 3DHVAC, was developed and used to predict the flow regimes and heat transfer characteristics. The flow regimes and heat transfer plays an important role in the efficiency and utilization of energy. Such behavior was found to be strongly dependent on turbulent shear, mixing, blockages, furniture orientation, wall conditions, and location of supply and return grilles.