Experimental Measurements and Theoretical Predictions of the Thermohydraulic Performance of Clean Rooms for the Semi-Conductor Industry

Abstract

There is a need to engineer working areas where air-borne pollution is below specified limits. This need arises from activities as diverse as food processing, semi-conductor manufacture and surgery. In this paper, detailed experimental measurements of flows in a semiconductor manufacturing room are reported. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been used to study the flows within the room. Good agreement was found between the measured and predicted mean flow velocity distributions. Both the experimental measurements and the numerical predictions suggest that the ventilation system used in this room, which is of a common industrial design, does not produce ideal clean room conditions.