Building Envelope Pressure Manipulation for Streamlined High-Rise Buildings

Abstract

Methods of manipulating building envelope wind pressure distributions for application in the natural ventilation of high-rise buildings are presented using computer simulation methods. CFD was used to simulate the external flow while the multi-zone method was used to compute the flow distribution in the building interior. First, a 2–D CFD study was conducted to explore various techniques of manipulating the building envelope wind pressure distribution. This study indicated that the use of externally mounted flow-resistance devices is an effective method of manipulating the wind pressure distribution. It was demonstrated that this technique is well suited for application to buildings of streamlined cross-section (e.g. elliptical plan form). Next, a 3–D CFD study was conducted in order to investigate the performance of the flow resistance device concept applied to a full-scale building. The results indicated that it is possible to significantly alter the pressure distributions at different heights of the building by utilizing flow resistance devices. Manipulating the wind pressure distribution was shown to confer the ability to control the direction of the airflow exchange (i.e. intake versus exhaust) in the interior zones of a building.