An overview of room air motion measurement: Technology and application

This paper summarizes modern methods for airflow measurement and characterization. Specifically, the authors focus on the measurement technologies, their applications and limitations, and the future need of studies. Direct air distribution measurement could provide quantitative information of local air velocity and the whole field airflow pattern, which is correlated with the net air exchange rate between the fresh supply air and the room air, and the pollutant transportation. Quantifying air distribution, ventilation effectiveness, and pollutant transport in room air are of great scientific and practical interest. It will allow scientists, engineers, and building managers to better understand the ventilation operating conditions and the dynamics of the airborne pollutant release and dispersion in the room air space so that design and management of ventilation and air distribution systems can be improved. On the other hand, high-quality experimental data are also in great demand to provide verification for computational fluid dynamics models.