CE 59700 – Indoor Air Quality

Credits and contact hours:

  • 3 credits
  • Lecture meets 2 times per week for 75 minutes per meeting for 15 weeks

Specific course information:

  • Catalog description: Fundamentals of indoor aerosol science.
  • Prerequisites: Graduate standing with an undergraduate degree in engineering or consent of instructor. Qualified undergraduate students may enroll with consent of instructor.
  • Course status: Technical elective

Specific Goals for the course:

  • Student learning outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course the student shall be able to:
    • Mechanistically evaluate pollutant transport dynamics in buildings through application of material balance models.
    • Apply fundamental principles of aerosol physics to characterize the behavior of indoor aerosols from several nanometers to tens of micrometers in size.
    • Evaluate human exposure to indoor aerosols and analyze the effectiveness of engineering control strategies for indoor air pollution.
    • Read and critically analyze papers in the technical literature on indoor air quality (IAQ) and aerosols.
    • Gain additional insight regarding specific topics related to indoor air quality and aerosols through a rigorous course project.
    • Analyze, and discuss in a group-setting, contemporary IAQ issues facing our global society.
    • Prepare and review written and oral technical communication.
  •  Relationship of course to program outcomes
    • Outcome 1: An ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science and mathematics.
    • Outcome 5: An ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives.

Topics:

  • MATERIAL BALANCE MODELS FOR BUILDINGS
    • Introduction, indoor aerosols and gases, the material-balance principle, single-zone material balance models for buildings, aerosol source and loss processes.
  • PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS
    • Statistical analysis of indoor and outdoor particle size distributions, aerosol measurement techniques.
  • SINGLE PARTICLE MOTION
    • Properties of gases, rectilinear particle motion, particle size definitions, inertial impaction, Brownian motion and diffusion.
  • PARTICLE DEPOSITION TO INDOOR SURFACES
    • Indoor particle deposition models, deposition velocity, particle transport in boundary layer, deposition loss rate coefficients.
  • ADHESION AND RESUSPENSION
    • Particle detachment and resuspension mechanisms, adhesion forces, modeling indoor particle resuspension.
  • FILTRATION AND AIR CLEANING
    • Size-resolved filtration mechanisms, modeling filtration efficiency.
  • EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT
    • Exposure assessment, intake fraction, lung deposition models.