The Fontaine Research Park Parking Garage is a new 55,000-square-foot, three-story parking garage on the University of Virginia’s Charlottesville campus. The building design team was considering natural ventilation and mechanical exhaust strategies to maintain the garage’s indoor air quality during times of high usage, especially during the NCAA football season.
Baumann Consulting researched typical vehicle emissions, OSHA air quality recommendations, and provided a CFD study to predict the airflow, temperature, and vehicle exhaust concentration profiles for the lower tier of the Fontaine Research Park Parking Garage.
Two simulation scenarios were tested to analyze whether the proposed natural ventilation openings were likely to mitigate vehicle exhaust concentrations to OSHA-acceptable levels under prevailing weather conditions. Nine observation points (27 points total) were set at each floor, at a five-foot breath zone height, to monitor the CO concentration.
The simulation results demonstrated that the parking garage’s indoor air quality could be maintained at safe conditions during times of high usage under prevailing outdoor window conditions during peak-usage seasons.
