Control Depot, Inc.’s Post

Transcript

We spent almost all of our time in indoor environments, whether they're stationary or moving. Could be the place where you work, the place where you live, but also how you get there, a car or a bus or a train. Over 90% of our time typically is spent breathing air that's affected by our indoor surroundings and that's controlled by the systems that regulate the indoor environment. My name is Bill Bond Floeth. I'm a professor of architectural engineering at Penn State, where I teach courses. And HVAC systems and specialize in indoor air quality research. I'm also a member of Ashray and chair of its Epidemic Task Force, and a member of Isaac, the International Society for Indoor Air and Climate. It's an axiom that you can't manage what you don't measure, and so it's important to know what contaminants are in the indoor era so that we can manage them properly. We need sensors that will measure the various key air contaminants, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds. CO2 is an indicator of occupancy so that we can use those measurements to control the systems that maintain good air quality for us so that we have a good indoor environment. The signals from sensors can be used to control indoor air quality in a lot of ways. So the main way that we control indoor air quality in buildings is with ventilation. Sensors that measure carbon dioxide can be used to indicate how many people are in the building, and that can be used to regulate the ventilation. If we have high levels of contaminants that are generated by the building itself, maybe volatile organic compounds that are produced by carpeting or other materials that have organic adhesives and. Materials in them or articulate matter that might be produced by cooking, all of these things can be controlled by ventilation. So by sensing all of the different key contaminants, we can then have ventilation that any given time. But bringing lots of outdoor into a building creates a big energy cost. We have to condition it from whatever the temperature and humidity outdoors are to the conditions that we have inside. So we don't want to over ventilate as much as we don't want to under ventilate, so. If we have targets for indoor contaminants that can control the ventilation and we can measure those contaminants with sensors, then we can have the right amount of ventilation. Another issue with indoor air quality control is controlling air movement. In general, we want air to move from clean to less clean conditions. O we want to have good air flow control and that requires controlling pressurization. So we need sensors that know what the pressure differences are between different spaces in the building that can be used to control the amount of air delivered to different spaces, to have the pressure relationships that we want to maintain. So it's both energy efficient and effective in terms of maximizing. Our well-being and our productivity indoors.