Modelling indoor pollutant exposure from steady-state and pulse sources

Abstract The distribution of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) around a thermal manikin was simulated using the model of a passive scalar under constant inhalation mode. The effect of the generation mechanism and the distance to receptor of the pollutant was addressed by simulating diffusive and momentum sources in steady-state and pulse sources in transient mode. The inhaled fraction of pollutant was nearly identical for all cases with the exception when the pollutant was emitted from the body surface and therefore entrained by the thermal convective plume. The reason for this uniformity was attributed to the fairly good degree of mixing and relatively large nominal time constant, which helped to distribute the pollutant uniformly.