An Eulerian–Eulerian model for particulate matter transport in indoor spaces

• Comparably accurate against the Lagrangian model, but more cost-efficient.
• Direct prediction to PM concentration.
• No post-processing procedures needed.

A new type of Eulerian-based two-phase flow model, known as the Eulerian–Eulerian model, was applied in this study to model the transport and distribution characteristics of particulate matters in indoor spaces. Computations were conducted with both transient and steady states and under both isothermal and thermal conditions. Comparisons against the experimental data available in the literature and the existing models for PM transport (e.g. the Lagrangian model and the drift-flux model) demonstrated that the Eulerian–Eulerian model is capable of realizing a comprehensive description of inter-phase mechanisms and has a comparable accuracy with the Lagrangian model. More importantly, the Eulerian–Eulerian model gives a direct prediction to the PM concentration field through solving a set of conservation equations for the particulate phase, thus does not need additional post-processing procedures to estimate the PM concentration based on the particle trajectories. Therefore, the Eulerian-Eulerian model needs much lower computational cost than the Lagrangian model and eliminates the uncertainties that might be caused by the additional procedures.