WIND-INDUCED INTERNAL PRESSURES IN LOW-RISE BUILDINGS WITH PARTITION WALLS

Abstract

The properties of internal pressures induced by wind in buildings are very important for evaluating the wind loads of exterior materials and partition walls in those buildings. This paper describes the properties of internal pressure induced by wind in nominally sealed but leaky low-rise buildings with partition walls. The internal pressures induced by wind in the twin-room building models are numerically simulated by using the external pressures and leakage model of leakage paths of external walls and partition walls. Also, the internal pressures of twin-room building models are measured in a wind tunnel experiment with the models having apertures in their external walls and partition walls. It is shown that the maximum value and minimum value of the mean internal pressure coefficients induced by wind in the twin-room buildings depend on the ratio of leakage in the external walls and the partition walls.