{"id":246,"date":"2016-08-05T14:35:20","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T14:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/?p=246"},"modified":"2016-09-02T09:30:57","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T09:30:57","slug":"southampton-wind-modulated-extraction-leads-the-way-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/2016\/08\/05\/southampton-wind-modulated-extraction-leads-the-way-in-the-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Southampton Wind-Modulated Extraction Leads the Way in the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

In order to keep safe, the laboratory must be well-ventilated by fume hoods which extract air out of the lab… but the story doesn’t end there. The fumes are pumped out of the buildings through giant fans out of the chimneys on the roof. The wind can blow the fumes into nearby buildings and wildlife, so they need to be blown fast and hard enough\u00a0to compete with this.\u00a0A standard\u00a0UK extraction system will blow the fumes out at a constant rate, based on average wind speed.\u00a0However, on a still day the fumes will naturally rise up\u00a0into the air more readily\u00a0and won’t cause as much disturbance\u00a0(see below). Using a constant extract rate means enormous amounts of energy are wasted blowing the fumes upwards, when this isn’t always needed.<\/p>\n

\"Wind<\/a>

On the left shows how high wind speed can blow nasty fumes around into the surroundings – the fumes need to be pumped harder in this case. On the right shows a still day, in which the fumes safely rise into the air.<\/p><\/div>\n

To solve this problem, an American engineer designed a wind-modulated system for building 30\u00a0\u00a0– the first of its kind in the UK. This works by adapting the extract rate to the weather, finding and applying the most efficient rate for the given wind conditions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

The process\u00a0of its design was\u00a0ingenious. A scaled down model of\u00a0the building,\u00a0surrounding campus and city were placed in a wind tunnel which replicated the conditions in Southampton. The\u00a0\u00a0model could be rotated around\u00a0360\u00b0, to simulate wind blowing\u00a0from different directions; the fan in the tunnel could be turned up or down to produce different wind speeds. The\u00a0extract rates were continually adjusted to\u00a0give the most efficient one;\u00a0reducing\u00a0it with less wind and increasing with more wind. This was then scaled up to the real world, fitting a wind monitoring device on the roof, which allows the fans to adjust by feeding data into them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"B30<\/a>

\u00a0 The model can be rotated fully to model wind direction <\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

\"2<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The system was\u00a0built and 2012 and\u00a0became fully operational in September 2013. The energy savings made have prevented a whopping\u00a0180 Tonnes of CO<\/span>2<\/span><\/sub> being emitted per year.<\/p>\n

Following its success, Southampton plans to implement a second wind-modulated system on building 29 in the future.<\/p>\n

There is a necessary\u00a0balance between safety and energy\u00a0use when it comes to laboratory ventilation systems. With this new technology, the University\u00a0Southampton has found a more sustainable balance that could lead the way for other UK chemistry departments to do the same.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In order to keep safe, the laboratory must be well-ventilated by fume hoods which extract air out of the lab… but the story doesn’t end there. The fumes are pumped out of the buildings through giant fans out of the chimneys on the roof. The wind can blow the fumes into nearby buildings and wildlife, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98697,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[864259],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-building"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98697"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/chemsustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}