Abstract
Currently, the energy and environmental efficiency of buildings has led to the development of cladding systems that may help to reduce the structure’s energy demand, using techniques such as the Permeable Double Skin Façade (PDSF). Given complex aerodynamic interactions, the presence of an external porous screen in addition to an inner skin may play a crucial role in the fluid-dynamic characterization of such buildings, making the definition of wind effects very complex. A new methodology for the quantitative assessment of the impact of wind-loading conditions on this particular type of cladding is presented. It is based on a combined experimental–numerical approach, essentially based on wind-tunnel tests on a rigid scale model and computational fluid dynamic simulations. A case study is proposed as an application of this methodology. Results include the design pressure values for the inner glazed façade and the permeable facade. An estimation of the flow rate across the porous skin is quantified using the numerical model.
Highlights
Energy-efficiency strategies are presently integrated into the design process of a building
This paper proposes a new methodology for addressing the design of a Permeable Double Skin Façade (PDSF) in terms of the wind effects: experimental tests and CFD simulations with porous media models will play complementary roles, to address the computation of the design pressures on both façade layers and to estimate the flow rate through the permeable skin
The proposed method takes advantage of a combined numerical—experimental approach, where the former is dedicated to estimating the flow rate and the latter focuses on the assessing the cladding load
Summary
Energy-efficiency strategies are presently integrated into the design process of a building. As far as interaction with wind is concerned, the presence of an outer permeable skin is expected to alter the distribution of wind-induced pressure on the inner façade and, the design cladding loads. When predicting the wind effects on a building envelope of this type, a typical multi-scale problem must be addressed—the relevant effects due to the building’s geometry being immersed in the atmospheric boundary layer must be considered along with those related to the small-scale details of the porous components’ geometry. Both scales simultaneously affect the building-wind interaction
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