Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Building Ventilation and Pressurization As A Security Tool
Building Ventilation and Pressurization As A Security Tool
Building Ventilation and Pressurization As A Security Tool
Building Ventilation
And Pressurization
As a Security Tool
By Andy Persily, Ph.D., Fellow ASHRAE ment. For example, to limit the movement
of motor vehicle exhaust from attached
n recent years many individuals and organizations have advocated
I the use of several ventilation-based strategies to protect building oc-
garages into the occupied portions of a
building, garage exhaust fans are used to
keep the garage at a lower pressure than
cupants from accidental and intentional releases of airborne chemical, the rest of the building. However, the ac-
biological and radiological (CBR) agents. For example, the protection tual performance of these systems depends
on their design, installation, commission-
offered by outdoor air filtration and air cleaning in combination with
ing, operation and maintenance.
building pressurization has been highlighted. However, many of these When all these factors are not ad-
recommendations have not considered the key role played by envelope equately considered, the design intent
may not necessarily be realized in prac-
airtightness in determining the effectiveness of these strategies.
tice. System commissioning is critical to
achieving the design intent when the
This article discusses how ventilation Ventilation and CBR Exposure building is first constructed and the sys-
impacts the vulnerability of buildings to Ventilation systems are used in build- tems installed; recommissioning is criti-
airborne CBR releases, as well as some ings for a variety of reasons, primarily to cal to maintain performance throughout
of the strategies where ventilation might provide heating, cooling and humidity the life of a building.
be used to increase the level of building control for occupant comfort. But, they Ventilation and air distribution are
protection against such incidents. In par- also are designed and hopefully operated critical with respect to the issues of CBR
ticular, strategies involving pressuriza- to bring in sufficient outdoor air for con- agents entering buildings, their move-
tion of the building interior to protect taminant control, to remove indoor air ment within buildings and their subse-
against outdoor releases are discussed, containing contaminants (e.g., toilet ex- quent removal. However, ventilation can
with specific attention to the impact of haust), and to create pressure differences have either positive or negative impacts.
envelope airtightness. to limit undesirable contaminant move-
About the Author
For a more complete discussion of ASHRAE’s views, see its position paper on homeland Andy Persily, Ph.D., is a mechanical engineer
security, “Risk Management Guidance for Health, Safety and Environmental Security Un- with the National Institute of Standards and Tech-
der Extraordinary Incidents,” at www.ashrae.org/homelandsecurity. Also, the information nology in Gaithersburg, Md. He is past chair of
presented here may not constitute the opinion of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. the Standard 62 committee.
0.2 1
40
0.1 0.5
20
0.0 0.0
0 0 2 4 6 8 10
0 20 40 60 80 100 Effective Leakage Area (cm2/m2)
Effective Filter Efficiency
Figure 3 (left): Impact of infiltration on filtration effectiveness. Figure 4 (right): Airflow needed to achieve 5 Pa pressurization.
with their design values. This makes the need for good system envelope pressure difference under selected conditions of sys-
operation and maintenance, including recommissioning, that tem operation and weather. An indoor-outdoor pressure differ-
much more important. ence of 5 Pa (0.02 in. w.g.) was used in this example, but is not
a definitive criterion for successful building pressurization.
Sample Calculations of Infiltration Rates Figure 4 is a plot of Q5 the net airflow rate per unit floor area
To develop a better sense of the potential degradation in required to achieve a +5 Pa (+0.02 in. w.g.) pressure inside the
filtration effectiveness, calculations were performed for three building as a function of the ELA value with no wind and no
generic office buildings used in a previous study of energy indoor-outdoor temperature difference (therefore no stack ef-
impacts of infiltration.4 These three buildings included a one- fect). This net airflow would be the outdoor air intake rate minus
story, four-story and 20-story building. For each building, Q5, any exhaust or spill airflows. Alternatively, it can be thought of
the airflow required to pressurize each building to 5 Pa (0.02 as the net supply airflow into the building minus any return or
in. w.g.) was calculated, as well as the infiltration rate and exhaust airflows. As expected, a leakier envelope means more
of a dedicated air handler or exhaust system in such In general, if the agent is released outdoors, the
spaces, along with real-time pressure monitoring and objective is to limit its entry into the building. This can be
control, can help ensure the success of such strategies. done through pressurization strategies if the system has
There are many commercially available devices for that capability or by reducing the outdoor air intake by
monitoring pressure differences in buildings, including closing dampers or shutting down the system. However,
several commonly used in laboratory and health-care any of these strategies needs to be developed for the
ventilation systems. specific building in question and evaluated as to its
feasibility before being relied upon. If the release occurs
Q: How should a building’s HVAC system be operated indoors, the objective is to limit its transport beyond the
in the event of a CBR release? Should it be turned off, run release location and, if possible, to remove it from the
at 100% outdoor air, or all exhaust? Does the occupied space by filtration or exhaust. In these
recommendation depend on whether the release is situations, the principles of smoke control systems can
internal or external? Would the answer be any different if be useful, where exhaust from the release area can
the building is leaky or does not have effective filtration? achieve the desired end. Again, the details of how to
implement such an approach are inherently building and
A: There are two critical issues that must be considered
system specific.
in responding to these questions. First, one is assuming
The ability of any HVAC-based strategy in limiting
that they know a release has occurred and where it has
occupant exposure to a CBR agent will depend on the
occurred. This is a big assumption given the current state
level of filtration, the envelope airtightness and the system
of detection technology and the characteristics of many of
capabilities. These factors should all be investigated as
the CBR agents of concern. Second, as stressed in the
part of the planning process, as they will determine the
satellite broadcast, it is extremely difficult to generalize
effectiveness of any such strategy.
on the best response to a release, as it depends strongly
on the building configuration, the HVAC system design, A DVD of the satellite broadcast is available at
and the nature and location of the agent release. www.ashrae.org/bookstore.
airflow is required to pressurize the build- and the third column is the net airflow fective” filter efficiency. Nevertheless,
ing. The difference between the three rate (per floor area) required to achieve a more information is needed on building
buildings is based primarily on the ratio +5 Pa (+0.02 in. w.g.) indoor pressure dif- tightness and the penetration of outdoor
of their envelope surface area to their in- ference relative to outside. These values contaminants through leakage, as well as
terior volume. Note that for the highest are given for each building for zero wind additional analysis that considers other
value of ELA shown in the figure, the net speed and temperature difference and for building and system configurations and
airflow required to pressurize the build- elevated values of both. other weather conditions.
ing is on the order of 1.5 L/s · m2 (0.25 Note that for the tight envelope case,
cfm/ft2), which is somewhat higher than the indoor-outdoor pressure difference is Recommendations
typical minimum outdoor air intake rates greater than 5 Pa (0.02 in. w.g.) for all While challenges remain in increasing
for commercial buildings. cases, and therefore the ratio of infiltra- the level of building protection to CBR
Infiltration rates, envelope pressures tion to intake is zero. The net airflow re- agents, the ASHRAE Presidential Ad Hoc
and infiltration-intake ratios were also quired to maintain a 5 Pa (0.02 in. w.g.) Committee on Homeland Security has
calculated for the three buildings under of pressurization is less than or equal to made a number of recommendations that
the following conditions: the value assumed in the simulation. can be implemented almost immediately:5
• Net outdoor air intake equal to 0.5 However, for the leakier envelope, nega- • First, know your ventilation systems.
L/s·m2 (0.1 cfm/ft2), based on 10 % of a tive pressures and, therefore, nonzero in- Find the documentation, the fan specifi-
supply airflow rate of 5 L/s·m2 (1 cfm/ft2); filtration exist for the nonzero weather cations, the sequence of operations and
• ELA of 1 cm2/m2 and 10 cm2/m2 (0.01 conditions in all three buildings. other relevant material. If they are miss-
and 0.14 in.2/ft2); As expected, the taller buildings have ing, you may need to create them. The
• Indoor-outdoor temperature differ- more negative pressures due to the stack objective here is to understand what your
ence of 0°C and 20°C (0°F and 36°F); effect. The infiltration-intake ratios are system was designed to do.
and around 1.5 for these cases, resulting in sig- The next step is to evaluate its opera-
• Wind speed of 0 m/s and 5 m/s (0 nificant degradation of filtration effective- tion relative to the design intent. If it is
mph and 11 mph). ness as discussed with reference to Figure not performing as intended, you need to
Table 1 shows the results of these cal- 3. Finally, the net airflow required to address the deficiencies that exist. This
culations for the three buildings. For the achieve at least 5 Pa (0.02 in. w.g.) of posi- will enable you to use the system more
two values of ELA, corresponding to tive pressure everywhere on the envelope reliably in the event of a CBR incident. It
relatively tight and leaky envelopes, the is significant for the leaky envelope case. is also very likely to improve indoor air
first column contains ∆p min. in Pa, The results in Table 1 show that the pro- quality conditions and energy efficiency
which is the minimum indoor-outdoor tection offered by building pressurization during normal operation. As part of this
pressure difference calculated on the and outdoor air filtration/air cleaning can effort, you should make sure you know
building envelope. A positive value in- be degraded significantly by envelope how to shut off your ventilation systems
dicates that the indoor pressure is higher leakage. Therefore, building pressuriza- quickly, including exhaust systems.
than the outdoors at all locations, while tion strategies should be developed and While it won’t always be clear when this
a negative value indicates a lower in- implemented based on weather-induced needs to be done, the capability should
door pressure somewhere on the enve- pressures and envelope leakage.Building be there. Some are even recommending
lope. The second column for each value tightening should be considered as a pro- quick shutoff switches that are easily ac-
of ELA is the ratio of the infiltration rate tective measure itself, as it makes pressur- cessible to emergency responders. As part
QINF to the outdoor air intake rate QINT, ization easier to achieve and increases “ef- of this system evaluation, verify that your
September 2004 ASHRAE Journal 23
system is operating in accordance with that are considered in response to CBR Environments from Airborne Chemical, Bio-
ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62, Ventilation incidents. Without such understanding, logical, or Radiological Attacks. National Insti-
tute for Occupational Safety and Health.
for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, and some changes can make the situation 2. Persily, A. 1999. “Myths about building
other relevant requirements, particularly worse. Therefore, do not take any actions envelopes.” ASHRAE Journal 41(3):39–47.
the outdoor air intake quantities. regarding system operation unless the 3. 2001 ASHRAE Handbook—Fundamen-
• Second, secure your mechanical rooms effects on airflow are thoroughly under- tals, Chapter 26, Ventilation and Infiltration.
and outdoor intakes to prevent tamper- stood. Finally, do not make changes to 4. Emmerich, S., and A. Persily. 1998.
“Energy impacts of infiltration and ventilation
ing. Air intakes should be located as high normal building operation to “reduce in U.S. office buildings using multizone
as practical aboveground. If relocating the building vulnerability” that degrade in- airflow simulation.” Proceedings of IAQ and En-
intakes is not an option, access can still door air quality or comfort under normal ergy ’98.
be limited or they can be monitored with operation. 5. 2003. Report of Presidential Ad Hoc Com-
surveillance cameras or alarms. mittee for Building Health and Safety Under
References Extraordinary Incidents on “Risk Management
• Finally, it is critical to understand 1. NIOSH. 2003. Guidance for Filtration Guidance for Health, Safety and Environmen-
the consequences of any HVAC changes and Air-Cleaning Systems to Protect Building tal Security under Extraordinary Incidents.”