Effects of walk-by and sash movement on contaminant leakage of air curtain-isolated fume hood.

The effects of the walk-by motion and sash movement on the containment leakage of an air curtain-isolated fume hood were evaluated and compared with the results of a corresponding conventional fume hood. The air curtain was generated by a narrow planar jet issued from the double-layered sash and a suction slot-flow arranged on the floor of the hood just behind the doorsill. The conventional fume hood used for comparison had the major dimensions identical to the air-curtain hood. SF tracer-gas concentrations were released and measured following the prEN 14175-3:2003 protocol to examine the contaminant leakage levels. Experimental results showed that operating the air-curtain hood at the suction velocity above about 6 m/s and jet velocity about 1 m/s could provide drastically high containment performance when compared with the corresponding conventional fume hood operated at the face velocity of 0.5 m/s. The total air flow required for the air-curtain hood operated at 6 m/s suction velocity and 1 m/s jet velocity was about 20% less than that exhausted by the conventional fume hood. If the suction velocity of the air-curtain hood was increased above 8 m/s, the containment leakage during dynamic motions could be reduced to ignorable level (about 10(3) ppm).