Internal pressure in a building with a single dominant opening: an experimental and numerical case study

Abstract

An experimental and numerical case study of internal pressure induced through a windward dominant opening in buildings is presented. Openings of five different sizes were tested in the wind tunnel in two different terrain roughness conditions. Higher root-mean-square (RMS) and peak internal pressure coefficients, effected by Helmholtz resonance, are experimentally reported with increase in the opening size and terrain roughness. Numerical simulations of both the mean and fluctuating internal pressures are additionally performed using existing models available in the literature. Good agreement between the numerical predictions and experimental results are obtained by fitting the loss coefficient, an ill-defined parameter, in the internal pressure governing equation. Loss coefficients, in general, are found to increase with opening area and decrease with terrain roughness.