Air Movements through Horizontal Openings in Buildings
- A Model Study
C. Blomqvist
and M. Sandberg
University
of Gävle, Centre for Built Environment, Gävle,
SE 801-76, Sweden
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Abstract
A building contains a
number of large openings, such as doors and staircases. When the
temperature of the spaces connected by these openings differs, the
difference in density will cause air movements through them. Horizontal
air movements through vertical openings in buildings, such as doors and
windows are well investigated while studies of air movements through
horizontal openings, such as stairwells are less frequent and therefore
this work focuses on this case. This paper reports on an experimental
study of the possibility of using buoyancy forces to distribute air and
heat through horizontal openings. The experiments have been carried out in
a scale model with water as the operating fluid. The result of the study
shows that the flow rate through a horizontal opening is approximately
half of the flow rate through a vertical opening for the same conditions,
probably caused by the more complex flow pattern in the horizontal
opening. A staircase below the horizontal opening will guide the flow
somewhat and will cause a small increase of the fluid exchange through the
opening.
Key words: air
movement, staircase, large openings, horizontal openings, salt bath model.
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