Development of Smart Software for the Selection and Design of Local Ventilation Systems based on the Visual Basic Programming Language

Abstract

Background and Objective: Air pollution in industrial work environments has adverse effects on worker health. Among these effects, one can refer to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, which impose direct and indirect costs on society. Local exhaust ventilation is considered an appropriate approach to remove pollutants released in indoor work environments. This study aimed to develop a smart application for designing and selecting local exhaust ventilation systems. Materials and Methods: This study was designed and performed at two stages. At the first stage, a smart application that could select and design the best local exhaust ventilation system was developed using Visual Basic 6.0. Subsequently, for the validation of this application, the results obtained by the application were compared with the benchmarks. Statistical analysis was performed in SPSS software (version 22), and the Bland-Altman plot was utilized to examine the consistency among the results. Results: Among the parameters, the maximum difference was related to the static pressure drop of the channel with a 5% difference, and the lowest difference was related to the size of the calculated diameters, in which no difference was observed. Bland-Altman plot showed that the standard deviation of the results of the designed software in the calculations of 28 branches of the ventilation systems designed for static pressure, velocity pressure, and total pressure was in the range of ±2SD. Conclusion: Since the software presented in this study has an error of less than 5%, it can be used as a suitable and reliable tool for designing local suction ventilation systems.

Keywords

• local ventilation systems
• pressure drop
• smart design
• workplace pollutants