Main Presentation - 4:00 pm - IAQ and You in a Time of Pandemic

Main Presentation Highlights:

The primary function of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that serve occupied spaces is to provide acceptable indoor environmental quality (IEQ) for those occupants. IEQ is often thought of as being comprised of multiple components, including air quality, thermal conditions, acoustic conditions, and lighting. The energy use of HVAC systems makes up a significant portion of the energy use of buildings, so the efficiency of these systems has long been a fundamental concern for modelers, designers, owners, and occupants. The “typical” approach to design balances providing minimum requirements with the energy use of systems. Indoor air quality (IAQ) is one component of IEQ that traditionally taken a backseat to other concerns until there is a problem, a situation that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the measures that have been proposed to reduce risk of disease transmission are very expensive from an energy standpoint. This talk will outline the role of indoor air quality in the health and safety of occupants, discuss the role of holistic solutions to the overall problem of resilience, and propose potential paths forward

Presenter:  Dr. Jason DeGraw

Dr. Jason DeGraw holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Houston and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. He is currently a member of the R&D Staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. DeGraw’s research work has focused on the numerical simulation of thermo-fluid flow phenomena at a variety of scales and in several different application areas. His recent work in building performance simulation has applications in indoor air quality, building security, and resilience. Dr. DeGraw is currently a member of the EnergyPlus development team, the U.S. DOE’s flagship building energy simulation engine. He is an active member of ASHRAE and is the founding chair of TC 2.10 Resilience and Security.