Indoor Environment Center
The Indoor Environment Center is a center within the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment concerned with all aspects of indoor environmental quality and the impact of such systems on building-related resource (energy, water, etc.) use and pollution generation. Building security from intentional and unintentional large scale releases of toxic and infectious agents is a subset of this scope.
The Indoor Environment Center has been engaged in research related to protection of buildings and their occupants from chemical and biological weapons attacks since 2002. Sponsors are the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office-Technical Support Working Group, for whom a tool for rapid modeling of air and contaminant flows in buildings was developed; U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, for whom we have conducted a number of projects related to risk assessment and management, including modeling of the impact of building characteristics on occupant exposure to bioaerosols, and experimental and modeling studies of the resuspension of bioaerosols; and the National Center for Energy Management and Building Technologies, for whom we are conducting 1) a scoping study surveying the state of the art and research needs for protocols to assess the effectiveness of security upgrades to buildings, 2) experimental and analytical studies of the effectiveness of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) for controlling indoor bioaerosols and 3) an investigation of the effect of air distribution system design on energy use, air quality, and security. The UVGI/bioaerosol facilities being developed for the NCEMBT projects are probably unique at this time, including a bioaerosol control device test loop and facilities for testing UV lamp aging characteristics and response to variable ambient conditions.
Center faculty have participated in numerous panels and workshops organized by organizations such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, UPMC Biosecurity Center, NIST, DTRA, EPA, and the National Research Council to discuss building chembio security issues and have made presentations at many professional meetings, including conferences of ASHRAE, Society for Risk Analysis, and others.
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