wind pressure

Increasing design standards within the building industry mean that some form of pre-construction testing of the building envelope is required. Expensive and time consuming field tests are becoming more impractical whereas the cost-effectiveness a

Wind pressure coefficients (Cp values) are among the basic data required for ventilation and air infiltration calculations and modelling. More than two years of systematic wind tunnel testing in ETI of some of the most frequent building shapes has resulted in a database that has been provided with a handling program. This package is available from ETI, for IBM XT/AT and compatible PC's.

At the Norwegian Building Research Institute, Division Trondheim, we have been working on a research project involving wind pressure measurements. The main goal of the project is toget more information about the influence of wind pressure on the heat loss from timber frame walls with ventilated airspace between the wind barrier and the cladding. The project is divided into three parts: calculations, hot-box measurements and wind pressure measurements.

An appropriate way to identify the most efficient ventilation systems and improve their design is to use design codes for ventilation rates. These rates are strongly influenced by spatial and temporal fluctuations in wind pressure on the facade and roof. The influence of the effects of wind on ventilation was studied using a model which includes air compressibility, together with the pressure field measured on a model in a boundary layer wind tunnel. The simulation results obtained are analyzed using a design code.