Air pollution is estimated to cause 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2016, and in 2019 almost 99% of the world's population breathed air exceeding the guideline limits. Pollution from traffic emissions as well as industries represent a serious treatment for the outdoor-indoor air quality and heath of people. In particular, the aerosol particle dispersion induced by external atmospheric wind is regarded as one of the main air pollutants. Aerosol particles can survive for a certain time and travel through indoor air currents, especially in buildings not equipped with an efficient mechanical ventilation system (MVS). To improve the air quality, more efficient and greener MVS can be installed, however, most of the times this is not duable in a large range of buildings. Air cleanings (AC) could be adopted instead, however, it is still not sufficiently clear how MVS and AC can improve the indoor air quality by reducing the aerosol particle concentration induced by atmopsheric winds. The goal of this project is to evaluate ventilation strategies that allow preventing risk exposure of people while reducing energy consumption. Scenarios including different workspaces (as office and classrooms) will be analyzed by laboratory measurements and simulations of computational fluid dynamics to understand benefits/limitations of AC and MVS. Recommendations towards a sustainable development of buildings and work activities will be proposed.

The candidate should have knowledge of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), finite volume method, data analysis and statistics. Programming skills in Matlab/Python/C++ and knowledge of signal processing could also be beneficial. Team working attitude and excellent knowledge of spoken and written English are highly required.

The PhD candidate will carry out the research study at IUSS of Pavia, in the CARISMA group, in close collaboration with an international company leader in the field of air cleaning, pollutant reduction, mitigation and risk management for the health and security work. The student will be co-supervised by Dr. Alessio Ricci from IUSS (Italy), prof. Bert Blocken from Heriot-Watt University (UK) and an expert from the above-mentioned international company. The candidate will benefit from the extensive experience of these teams in climatology, measuring/modeling of atmospheric winds and aerosol concentration, air quality assessment, risk management of natural and anthropogenic hazards.