Single-sided natural ventilation driven by wind pressure and temperature difference

Even though opening a window for ventilation of a room seems very simple, the flow that occurs in this situation is rather complicated. The amount of air going through the window opening will depend on the wind speed near the building, the temperatures inside and outside the room, the wind direction, the turbulence characteristics in the wind and the pressure variations caused by e.g. wind gusts. Finally, it also depends on the size, type and location of the opening. Many of these parameters are unsteady which makes the calculation of air-change rates even more complicated. In this work, full-scale wind tunnel experiments have been made with the aim of making a new expression for calculation of the airflow rate in single-sided natural ventilation. During the wind tunnel experiments it was found that the dominating driving force differs between wind speed and temperature difference depending on the ratio between the forces and the wind direction. This change is also found in the velocity profiles measured in the opening, which might change from wind dominated to temperature dominated under the same wind direction but with increasing temperature difference.