• Journal of the Korean Society for Geothermal and Hydrothermal Energy
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.40-46
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• 2016

In order to improve air quality of indoor environment, studies of the underfloor air distribution (UFAD) system for application in buildings are actively in progress based on temperature and air flow distribution. However, although the age of air is the major evaluation parameter, there has been very little study on this parameter for the UFAD system. In this study, we investigated the age of air to reach the air diffuser, which is installed at the bottom of the interior by the UFAD system. Computational fluid dynamics simulations showed no regular pattern to the maximum value of the age of air in accordance with air flow rate and the velocity at air diffuser. These factors can be deduced from air movement by considering that air emitted from air conditioners was rotated according to the bottom shape of the floor, and then, the age of air in the rotation center was increased. The average age of air of internal interior was reduced considerably as the flow velocity at the underfloor air diffuser was increased from 0.5 m/s to 1.0 m/s However, the age of air was not substantially affected with change in the air volume. Moreover, when the flow velocity at the underfloor air diffuser was higher than 1.0 m/s, the age of air showed no significant difference with change in air volume or height of measurement. These results imply that indoor air quality is more substantially influenced by flow velocity than air volume, and the appropriate flow velocity is 1 m/s or more.