STABILIZATION CHARACTERISTICS OF VENTILATION IN BUILDINGS

Indoor radon concentrations depend strongly on ventilation between the rooms and the atmosphere. Here a set of linear differential equations is used to describe this transport. The solution for a multi-room bui lding is calculated numerically. A house with three storeys and three by three rooms on each storey was chosen to achieve some generality. T he air in each room is open to exchange with the air in adjacent rooms . All rooms except the middle rooms ventilate with the atmosphere. The middle rooms represent a staircase and Ventilate with all adjacent ro oms. The calculations were made for radon sources in one, some and all rooms, and different winds. Special emphasis was laid on the descript ion of stabilisation times. Each room in between the source and the ro om under consideration in the multi-room model reduces the maximum con centration by a factor of about 2.6 and delays the stabilisation by a factor of about 1.7.