Computational analysis of a human inhalation test chamber for dosimetry-and-health effect studies

Proper air flow and tracer gas distribution or contaminant ventilation are of great importance in biomedical test chambers or industrial workrooms. The focus is on mass transfer in an inhalation test chamber with a breathing subject on a bike exposed to a tracer gas environment (e.g., carbon monoxide). This is an environmentally realistic setup for dosimetry-and-health effect studies, which require controlled, near-uniform pollutant concentrations. However, unmodified test chambers exhibit a strong single vortex in the larger breathing zone, which, depending upon the subject's location, implies possible trace gas depletion during inhalation, foreign particle entrainment, excessive air velocities, and so on. Employing a commercial finite-volume code with user-enhanced Fortran programs, the transient three-dimensional turbulent momentum, mass, and heat transfer equations have been solved and the configurations of a suitable flow redirection device, different man-machine locations, and thermal effects have been analyzed. As a result, the best air flow device configuration and man-machine orientation have been determined to achieve high and consistent trace gas concentrations inhaled by the subject, for example, 96 percent of the CO concentration at the chamber inlet is inhaled by the subject for the optimal scenario.