Fluid Flow Model for Predicting the Intrusion Rate of Subsurface Contaminant Vapors into Buildings.

A new method is presented for calculating a building-specific subslab to indoor air attenuation factor for use in assessing subsurface vapor intrusion to indoor air. The technique includes (1) subslab gas extraction with flow and vacuum measurements and mathematical modeling to characterize the bulk average vertical gas conductivity of the floor slab, (2) monitoring of the ambient pressure gradient across the floor slab with a micromanometer, (3) calculating the volumetric flow of soil gas into the building ( Qsoil), and (4) dividing Qsoil by the building ventilation rate ( Qbuilding) to calculate a building-specific attenuation factor. Sample calculations using order statistics from 121 individual tests are comparable to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency empirical attenuation factors for residential buildings and the U.S. Navy empirical attenuation factors for commercial/industrial buildings. A case study of a commercial building shows encouraging agreement between the attenuation factors calculated via this method and via conventional subslab and indoor air sampling.

Mathematical analysis and flux-based radius of influence for radon/VOC vapor intrusion mitigation systems.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and radon progeny pose potential health risks to occupants of certain buildings via subsurface vapor intrusion (VI) to indoor air. VI mitigation is usually performed using systems that extract gas from below the building, and the system performance is typically evaluated by measuring the distribution of applied vacuum below the floor. This article provides a new approach to assessing the radius of influence (ROI) for subslab venting systems based on mass flux instead of static vacuum distribution and includes an analyses of 121 pneumatic tests performed at 65 different suction points in 16 different buildings. The mathematical model represents a two-layer system with horizontal radial flow through transmissive material below the floor slab and vertical flow through discontinuities in the floor slab (which is simplified to approximate an equivalent porous medium). The analysis includes comparisons of the flux-based ROI to values calculated using the two-layer model for 1) vacuum, 2) velocity, and 3) travel time, which may be useful as alternative performance metrics for mitigation systems.