Paper Conference

Proceedings of SimBuild Conference 2012: 5th conference of IBPSA USA

     

Wind-Driven Natural Ventilation in a Low-Rise Building: A Numerical and Experimetnal Study

Girma Bitsuamlak, Ashkan Rasouli
WindEEE Research Institute, Western University, London, Canada

Abstract: This paper presents a Boundary-Layer Wind Tunnel (BLWT) and numerical study on wind-driven natural ventilation for a low-rise building with multi-room partitioning, variable porosity size openings (in doors, windows and soffits), and a uniformly-distributed background leakage at a model-testing scale of 1:20. For the size of the building and openings considered, the experimental analyses indicated that the internal pressure due to cross-ventilation was 1.5 to 2.5 times higher when the ratio A inlet /A outlet >1 compared to A inlet /A outlet <1. Room partitioning significantly affected the distribution of internal pressures, and hence the pressure drop, in the particular case considered the room partitioning enhanced the ventilation by breaking the large circulation zones that would have been produced for a single zone. The inlet discharge coefficients obtained in this experiment ranged from 0.65 to 1.08, similar to the results of various early studies. The numerical study further clarified the characteristics of the cross-ventilation with and without room partitioning.
Pages: 193 - 200
Paper:
simbuild2012_03b_4_Bitsuamlak