Displacement ventilation

Displacement ventilation supplies relatively cool air at low level and removes warmer air at high level. In the ideal two-layer model, buoyant plumes feed a warm upper layer above a sharp density interface while the supply occupies the lower layer.

For a pure plume with $g_p^{\prime }=\gamma B^{2/3}{z}^{-5/3}$, a steady sharp interface at $z_i$ has $Q_p=B^{1/3}{z}_i^{5/3}/\gamma$ and warm-layer reduced gravity $g^{\prime }=B/Q_p$. A freely discharging upper doorway of height $D$ and width $W$ has available head $D-z_i$. Equating plume supply to the broad-crested weir flux gives the displayed implicit height relation, with $0<z_i<D$. Warm air above the doorway stores heat but adds no available head at its crest in this uniform-layer model.

Two independent point-source pure plumes with $\psi =B_1/B_2<1$ remove lower-layer volume $Q=C(B_1^{1/3}+B_2^{1/3})h_1^{5/3}$. If plume 1 feeds the middle layer, its reduced gravity is $g_1^{\prime }=B_1/[C{B}_1^{1/3}{h}_1^{5/3}]$. The upper outflow carries both sources, so $g_2^{\prime }=(B_1+B_2)/Q$, yielding the displayed ratio. Opening flow is driven by the integrated hydrostatic head $g_1^{\prime }(h_2-h_1)+g_2^{\prime }(H-h_2)$. A plume crossing the lower interface has altered buoyancy relative to its new ambient and must be continued with nonzero incoming mass and momentum fluxes rather than reset as a zero-flux pure plume.

A source volume $Q$ makes roof outflow exceed floor inflow by $Q$. At zero floor inflow, an entraining plume cannot support a steady cold lower layer; the warm layer reaches the floor. With reduced gravity $g^{\prime }=B/Q$, the entire hydrostatic head drives roof discharge $Q=A_e\sqrt{g^{\prime }H}$. This gives the stated threshold. Equal splitting of pressure head is inappropriate at blocking. The same result in physical-area notation is $Q_c=(2C_d^2{A}_{\mathrm{geom}}^{2}BH{)}^{1/3}$.

For total plume flux $P(h)$, fixed ceiling exhaust $F$, zero ambient buoyancy, and uniform upper-layer reduced gravity $b$, the ideal two-layer balances areAt $P(h_{\ast })=F$ and $b_{\ast }=B/F$, linearization yields the decay times ${\tau }_h=A/P^{\prime }(h_{\ast })$ and ${\tau }_b=A(H-h_{\ast })/F$. For $P(h)\propto h^{5/3}$, ${\tau }_h=3A{h}_{\ast }/(5F)$. Upper-layer buoyancy relaxation usually dominates when $h_{\ast }\ll H$. Exact equilibrium is approached asymptotically; a fixed small relative tolerance takes order $\max ({\tau }_h,{\tau }_b)\log (1/\epsilon )$ after the initial transient.

Consider entraining plumes supplied with total source volume flux $S$, a separate lower-layer ambient inflow $L$, and ceiling exhaust $F=S+L$. Write $P(h)=S+E(h)$, where $E(h)$ is total fluid entrainment from the lower layer. Volume conservation gives $A\dot{h}=L-E(h)$. A steady positive lower layer therefore requires $L=E(h)>0$. If $L=0$ and $E(h)>0$ for every $h>0$, no positive steady displacement-ventilation interface height exists. In a shifted pure plume approximation $P_i(h)=\lambda B_i^{1/3}(h+z_i{)}^{5/3}$ matched to source flux $S_i$ at $h=0$, this follows immediately from $P_i(h)>S_i$ for $h>0$. This is a statement about the ideal two-layer model, not a prohibition of all possible stratification in a real ventilated room.

Suppose $n$ independent axisymmetric pure plumes share total buoyancy flux $B$ equally, have negligible source volume flux, and are supplied with a separate ambient ventilation flux $F$ at floor level. Their combined flux is $P(h)=\lambda n^{2/3}{B}^{1/3}{h}^{5/3}$. Volume conservation at a steady displacement-ventilation interface height and buoyancy flux conservation giveA positive two-layer state needs $0<h_{\ast }<H$, sources small relative to $h_{\ast }$, and plumes sufficiently separated to remain independent. Splitting the sources increases total fluid entrainment and reduces the interface height by $n^{-2/5}$. A finite source flux cannot simultaneously be neglected and supply all the replacement air; no steady displacement layer without ambient supply explains this restriction.

At steady state, the displacement-ventilation interface lies where the total plume volume flux equals the imposed ventilation flux. For one triangular-profile wall line plume with kinematic buoyancy flux $B_0$, entrainment coefficient $\alpha$, and ventilation flux $A$ per unit span,