Engineering Commons^™

Lab Home Testing Of Residential Isolation Space Control To Minimize Infectious Disease Transmission In Existing Single-Family Homes, Florida Solar Energy Center, Tanvir Khan

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Existing evidence strongly suggests that viral infectious diseases can be transmitted via an airborne route across distances in indoor environments. Accordingly, the risk of airborne transmission within homes should be managed. The public health emergency associated with SARS-CoV-2 makes controlling airborne transmission of respired viruses in indoor environments critical, especially in poorly ventilated indoor environments. The effectiveness of engineering interventions requiring minor efforts that create a negative-pressure isolation zone (IZ) for a contagious person has yet to be tested for existing residential homes.

To mitigate the risk of airborne virus transmission and maximize health protection for the population in existing …

Resilient Florida Buildings: Alternative Fuel Options For Maintaining Power During Outages, Brochure, Florida Solar Energy Center, Colleen Kettles

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Electricity outages impact buildings as well as the fueling infrastructure that delivers energy resources for power generation and transportation. A fueling infrastructure with minimal downtime during power outages is needed to increase the resiliency of buildings and the economy. This brochure describes alternative fuels to consider for a buildings resiliency plan. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Energy Technology Development Program Award Number DE-EE0008880. FSEC Art#: BLDG-89 Updated: 05/20/2021

Metal And Flexible Duct Systems Impacts Upon Cooling Energy And Performance, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Flexible duct is commonly used throughout the U.S. in residential construction. It performs well when installed in accordance with industry standards, however, they are often not installed as such. Issues such as not cutting ducts to the exact length needed, and instead using significantly more duct, result in compression and higher static pressure. Poorly supported ducts or turns without proper radius also increase static pressure. A research project was completed to evaluate the differences in performance between a metal duct and flexible duct systems in two side-by-side otherwise identical residential laboratories. Testing evaluated three different flex duct system configurations compared …