Multi-stage downscaling procedure to analyse the impact of exposure concentration in a factory on a specific worker through computational fluid dynamics modelling

Abstract

Indoor air quality plays a significant role in human health, especially for those who spend the majority of their time indoors, as is the case of workers in the industrial field. The control of contaminants inside the occupational indoor environment becomes critically important for promoting health. In terms of Health Impact Assessment, indoor air quality inside a factory becomes an essential factor of industrial hygiene. Here, computational fluid dynamics-based indoor environmental design was applied to potentially evaluate the environmental quality in a factory and to improve industrial hygiene. In particular, this study proposes an integrated simulation procedure to predict the inhalation exposure concentration of a hazardous chemical compound (here, cyclohexanone) by using a multi-stage, one-way nesting method. This procedure connects a factory building space, a micro-climate around the human body, and a respiratory tract in the human body. This research provides quantitative and qualitative detailed information of contaminant dosing in workers. The exact inhalation dose of contaminants in the human airways can be estimated based on factory-environment conditions through this procedure. Subsequently, the average contaminant concentration in the work place and inside the human body can be calculated.