Control of the Wind Climate Around Buildings

Abstract

The wind environment around buildings may have a strong affect on the success of a building and its surrounding spaces. The wind influences both the operating costs and the environmental quality of built spaces. This report is intended to serve as a compact guide to environmental wind effects and their control, for use by civil engineers and architects. It reviews the causes of wind, the influences of regional and local topography and ground cover on local wind, and the principal features of airflow around buildings. It discusses climatological records, windspeed distributions, and procedures for estimating the windfield in the built environment. The wind effects on building performance are reviewed, and design procedures for their control are proposed. These are: (1) Building ventilation for occupant comfort and removal of heat; (2) air infiltration and heat conduction through the building envelope; (3) cooling tower ventilation; (4) fan backpressure; (5) pollution dispersal around buildings and within street canyons; (6) pedestrian comfort and the acceptability of outdoor spaces; and (7) particulate dispersal. The report concludes with discussions of wind tunnel modeling of building environments, and on‐site measurement.