Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access originally published online on September 12, 2005
Annals of Occupational Hygiene 2006 50(2):157-173; doi:10.1093/annhyg/mei048
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© 2005 British Occupational Hygiene Society Published by Oxford University Press
Original Article |
CFD Model for a 3-D Inhaling Mannequin: Verification and Validation
1 Environmental and Community Health, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0468, USA; 2 Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, School of Public Health, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7431, USA
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1 520 8825852; fax: +1 520 882 5014; e-mail: tra{at}email.arizona.edu
This work investigates the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to model air flow and particle transport associated with an inhaling anatomical mannequin. The studied condition is typically representative of occupational velocities (Re = 1920) and at-rest breathing (R = Uo/Um = 0.11). Methods to verify and validate CFD simulations are detailed to demonstrate convergence and describe the model's uncertainties. The standard k-epsilon model provided a reasonable flow field, although vertical velocity components were consistently smaller than the experimental validation data, owing to truncation of the computational model at hip height. Laminar particle trajectory studies indicated that the modeled velocity field resulted in a shift of particle aspiration fractions toward particles smaller than those determined experimentally, consistent with the vertical velocity field differences.
Keywords: inhalable particles • modeling computational fluid dynamics