Measures Used to Ensure Good Air Quality at Fresh Air Intakes
Jeff Reifschneider, CPP, Inc.
This presentation will provide an overview of design measures used to ensure good air quality at the fresh air intakes for the new $72 million, 196,000-square-foot (sq. ft.) New Mexico Scientific Laboratories (NMSL) building in Albuquerque. The project is the subject of a Labs 21 2010 Annual Conference tour. This unique multidisciplinary facility is located adjacent to the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Campus in Albuquerque. When occupied during the summer of 2010, NMSL will be among the top public health laboratories of its kind in the country.
NMSL will be comprised of a state of the art ventilation system that will be used to safely remove chemicals and biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) biological substances from the building. An integral component of the ventilation system will be the rooftop exhaust equipment. The primary purpose of the laboratory rooftop exhaust equipment is to project or propel exhaust up and away from the building such that contaminants will not be reentrained and adversely impact staff or the general public. To this end, the NMSL design team utilized design measures to prevent adverse impacts due to exhaust reentrainment with a particular focus on NMSL air intakes and nearby surrounding building air intakes.
To ensure good air quality at the NMSL air intakes and other sensitive locations, a wind-tunnel study was conducted. To meet the objectives of the study, a scale model of the new laboratory and nearby buildings within a 1,000 ft. radius was constructed and installed in an atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel. A tracer gas was released from the modeled laboratory stacks and concentration levels were measured at the locations of interest for various wind conditions. The overall maximum concentrations were compared to health and odor limits. This process was repeated for various stack heights, volume flows, exit velocities, and intake locations.
The study also involved a detailed risk assessment of the exhaust stream from the building's human autopsy suite to evaluate the effectiveness of the exhaust with and without HEPA filtration. The risk assessment combined the measurements from the wind-tunnel study with the wind frequency distribution at the site.
This presentation will also provide general information on LEED® credits that can be obtained by conducting an exhaust modeling study.
Overall, this presentation will provide an explanation of the purpose of a laboratory exhaust system along with best practice guidance on measures to ensure a safe design.
Biography:
Jeff Reifschneider, senior engineer, has been with CPP since 2004. He conducts wind tunnel and numerical modeling studies related to laboratory exhaust design and regulatory applications. Mr. Reifschneider obtained a Master of Science in environmental science from the University of Kansas College of Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. While at CPP, Mr. Reifschneider has participated in American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) research related to exhaust design. Mr. Reifschneider is an active member of the Air and Waste Management Association (AWMA).