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Wind Tunnel Testing for Campus Design
Chet Wisner, Ambient Air Technologies,
LLC
Wind tunnel testing is often used to determine where plumes from
exhaust stacks will go and to determine the concentrations of toxic
substances they may expose people to. Typically, these studies address
an individual building which is being designed. However, increasingly,
institutions are taking a larger scale point of view in their campus
facility planning. They are looking at building clusters, and in
some cases, the entire campus as their planning unit.
This presentation will describe how wind tunnel testing is being
used to facilitate the design of multi-building units. Building
location and configuration decisions can benefit from knowledge
of the air quality consequences of the design alternatives.
The location of facilities generating toxic air pollutants relative
to facilities which may be exposed can be optimized to avoid problematic
configurations which will make the design of exhaust systems for
individual facilities more challenging than it needs to be. Campus-
and cluster-level strategies for design of exhaust and outside air
intake systems can be developed which will provide future payoffs
in terms of less expensive, less obtrusive exhaust stacks and outside
air intakes.
Case studies will be presented demonstrating the use of wind tunnel
testing for multi-building clusters and campus-level planning. Attendees
will learn how to effectively incorporate wind tunnel testing into
their campus and sub-campus planning to optimize the design of exhaust
stacks and outside air intakes and to avoid undesirable increases
in wind at pedestrian locations.
Labs21 Connection:
The use of the wind tunnel as an early design tool is one that
is just beginning to break ground. Typically, a wind tunnel study
is used after the majority of the design effort on a single building
has been completed, and the wind tunnel tests are conducted to simply
"verify" the safety of the design. Design teams and owners
are beginning to understand that a physical model in the wind tunnel
can be used early in the design phase to understand the behavior
of the airflow around buildings in the context of existing or planned
buildings. This allows for testing of options early in the programming
phase of an individual, multi-building, or campus wide project,
prior to extensive design effort being expended. Final testing in
the wind tunnel can then be conducted to document the final design
configuration.
This presentation is consistent with the Labs21 approach of:
- Minimizing overall environmental impacts - Advanced planning
for laboratory exhausts is crucial to laboratory and healthcare
facility design and should be incorporated into phased planning
efforts as well as individual building projects.
- Protect occupant safety - Exhaust behavior around a laboratory
building can be a serious concern in dense campus environments.
The safety of workers in the facility, in adjacent facilities, and
in surrounding outdoor areas is important and must be protected.
- Optimize whole building efficiency - The use of a wind tunnel
study for laboratories allows the design team to optimize the size
of exhaust system that is required for the building. This not only
reduces the first-costs associated with the construction, but allows
for significant energy savings over the life of the building.
Biography:
Chet Wisner is the President of Ambient Air Technologies,
LLC, a Colorado based firm specializing in wind-tunnel modeling
of laboratory and healthcare facilities. He has played an active
role in the air quality portion of the environmental industry for
over 30 years. Applying his experience and expertise in meteorology,
engineering, and physics to physical modeling using scale models
in a boundary-layer wind tunnel, he has personally managed or directed
many wind tunnel studies. In addition, he has personally managed
a number of large scientific projects including a $1.2 million field
project for the Baton Rouge Ozone Task Force to study the formation
of ozone in the Baton Rouge vicinity. This project was touted by
users of its data as "producing the most useful data per dollar
of any project of its kind." Chet coauthored an EPA-recommended
protocol for the use of environmental wind tunnel studies to determine
plume downwash characteristics for input to EPA's own regulatory
dispersion models. He was responsible for some of the largest air
quality monitoring networks in the U.S., and has conducted numerous
field studies of atmospheric dispersion. His educational background
includes an MBA in Management Strategy and Policy/Marketing from
UCLA, an MS in Meteorology from South Dakota School of Mines and
Technology, and a BS in Engineering Physics from UC Berkeley. He
is an active member of several professional organizations including
ASHRAE, Air & Waste Management, and the American Meteorological
Society.
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