
its absolute temperature, and as long as the pressure differential remains small
with respect to the atmospheric pressure:
q ¼ q
m
T
T
m
ð4:5Þ
where T and T
m
are the absolute temperatures of the air going respectively
through the measured elements and through the fan or the airflow-measuring
device. This assumes that the variations of air moisture do not significantly
change the density. Before any further analysis, Equation 4.5 should be used
to correct the measured flows for density if the indoor–outdoor temperature
difference is larger than a few deg rees. Note that a difference of 108C will
induce a bias of 3 per cent in the airflow rate if this correction is not performed.
Two measurement points
If measurements are performed at two pressures only, for example at the lowest
accurately measurable pressure differential and at the maximum acceptable
one, results of measurements are p
1
, q
1
and p
2
, q
2
. The coeffici ents of the
power law are then:
n ¼
log q
1
log q
2
log p
1
log p
2
and C ¼
q
1
p
n
1
¼
q
2
p
n
2
ð4:6Þ
The coefficients of the quadratic law are:
a ¼
p
1
q
2
p
2
q
1
q
1
q
2
ðq
2
q
1
Þ
and b ¼
p
1
q
2
2
p
2
q
2
1
q
1
q
2
ðq
2
q
1
Þ
ð4:7Þ
More than two measurement points
More than two measurements may be useful for testing the fitness of the model
and to increase the accuracy of results. In this case, the least square fit method
can be applied to get the coefficients of the power law. For this, Equation 4.1
can be linearized by taking the logarithm of both sides:
log Q ¼ log C þ n log p ð4:8Þ
This expresses a linear relationship between log Q and log p (see Figure 4.4):
y ¼ a þ nx ð4:9Þ
with:
y ¼ log Q
a ¼ log C
x ¼ logðpÞ
ð4:10Þ
An appropriate fitting technique (see Chapter 7, ‘Identification methods’) can
be used to identify the parameters, a and b, and the corresponding confidence
64 Ventilation and Airflow in Buildings
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