The Effect of Wall Porosity on the Flow Rate in a Building Ventilated by Cross Wind

Wind-driven cross-ventilation in a single-zone cubic building with two large openings is investigated using a computational fluid dynamics approach. We analyzed the driving force and the ventilation flow rate due to wind as a function of the relative location and geometry of the two ventilation openings. The aim is to understand how well the conventional simple macroscopic method predicts the ventilation flow rate and when the simple method fails. Parametric studies were completed using building envelope porosity as the primary variable of interest.