Overall performance evaluation of aerosol number samplers

At present, there is neither an officially accepted size-selective fiber (aerosol number) sampler, nor are there established performance criteria. In this work, a prototype preclassifier (multihole impactor) was used to connect a conventional asbestos sampler so that the aerosol penetration test and particle counting process could be performed. The bias, as a function of particle size, was defined as the difference between the measured penetration curve and the target ISO/ACGIH/CEN respirable convention. The imprecision was the standard error with reference to the mean aerosol penetration curve. A statistical term, one standard error shift (OSES) was used in a previous study to combine the sampling bias and imprecision. The bias and imprecision could be for aerosol number, aerosol mass, or even surface area. In this work, an additional step was taken by introducing another statistical term, maximum sampling shift (MSS), to further combine the OSES with the counting imprecision. For the surrogate sampler tested, the particle counting imprecision increased with increasing particle diameter and decreased with increasing geometric standard deviation. The particle counting imprecision was comparable with the OSES, and the resultant MSS map was actually the summation of imprecision and OSES.