Abstract
The recent trends of high-density and high-rise in apartment housing have caused the problems of decrease in ventilation rates and increase of indoor pollutant contaminants. SHS(Sick House Syndrome) has now become a major issue and threats the health of residents. To solve these indoor air problems, increase in ventilation rate is considered as one of the most efficient approach. Thus, the recent housing development is pursuing improvement in the site design and the layout of apartment building blocks to promote natural ventilation is now investigated as one of the fundamental solutions. This study was focused on the air flow characteristics of outdoor environment in an apartment complex to keep the pollutants out of the site. Age of air and pressure difference have been used as indices of the outdoor air quality. Four different types of apartment building layouts have been analyzed by CFD simulation. This study again selected a real apartment housing complex as a case study model. By analyzing the pressure differences between the front and rear of an apartment building block, the ventilation performance in each individual unit was evaluated, and its impact on ventilation performance is investigated by analyzing the stagnant air around the apartment building blocks. During this process, existing patterns of apartment housing layout have been evaluated, and the most appropriate site layout has been chosen to analyze the outdoor airflow patterns. Based on the analysis of airflow patterns of site layout, the possibilities of improving ventilation performance of an individual apartment housing is proposed.