Wind tunnel measurements of cross-ventilation flow in a realistic building geometry: Influence of building partitions and wind direction

Mutmainnah Sudirman*, Stefanie G. Gillmeier, Twan van Hooff, Bert Blocken

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Wind tunnel measurements have widely been used for validation of computational fluid dynamics simulations of natural ventilation airflows. However, the majority of such measurements employed simple generic single-zone buildings, while there is a lack of studies on realistic buildings including flow-critical geometrical features (e.g. internal partitions). To assess the effect of internal partitions at different incident flow angles (α = 0° and α = 30°), wind tunnel measurements of velocities in and around a cross-ventilated realistic residential building (with and without internal partition) were performed. Measurements were conducted at a geometric scale 1:40, using laser Doppler anemometry. Results indicate a large impact of the internal partition on indoor airflow distribution and resulting ventilation flow rates. For instance, for α = 0°, on the partitioned building side, regions of velocity increase (from ∼0 m/s to ∼80% of the outdoor reference velocity, Uref), but also regions of velocity decrease (from ∼50% of Uref to ∼0 m/s) were observed. The ventilation flow rate through the windows at the partitioned side decreased by 23% and 32%, respectively. For the partitioned building, a change from α = 0° to α = 30° resulted in regions of velocity increase from 0 m/s to ∼60% of Uref.
Original languageEnglish
Article number105907
JournalJournal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics
Volume254
Early online date4 Oct 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2024

Keywords

  • Cross ventilation
  • Realistic building geometry
  • Wind tunnel measurements
  • Internal wall partition
  • Laser Doppler anemometry

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