Estimation of leakage rate of air from a fume hood in a radioisotope laboratory using CFD simulations

The leakage rate of air from a fume hood is an important factor for calculating the internal exposure at a workplace using the dose conversion factors recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In this study, the leakage rate from a fume hood was estimated in a radioisotope laboratory using computational fluid dynamics simulations. For this purpose, a three-dimensional fume hood model was built using CAD software. In this model, the leakage rate was calculated to be 3%, with face velocities between 0.1 and 1.0 m/s at the sash opening of the fume hood. This rate rapidly decreased to zero as the face velocities decreased to less than 0.1 m/s.