Dynamical systems approach to mixing and pollutant dispersion in indoor environments

Understanding the effect of airflow in enclosed/indoor environments is of great interest due to its close relationship to occupant’s health, thermal comfort, and energy efficiency. Optimally designed ventilation could result in increased comfort and reduced health risk of the occupants. Airflow indoors can distribute pathogen-laden aerosols and can pose a significant health hazard. Furthermore, indoor airflow patterns can be very complicated, and the complex and nonlinear nature of the problem makes it challenging to formulate a general mathematical framework which could be utilised by engineers to design and operate these environments optimally.  

This project aims to develop a generalised mathematical framework for ventilated indoor environments using ideas from dynamical systems and Lagrangian coherent structures-based approaches to quantify mixing which will impact the design and estimation of health risks in these environments. 

Figure 1: Mixing in an idealised ventilated space from a paper on ''Development of a numerical optimization approach to ventilation system design to control airborne contaminant dispersion and occupant comfort.'')