• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.265-276
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• 2022

Double-Skin Facades (DSF) on tall buildings are becoming increasingly common in urban environments due to their ability to provide architectural merit, passive design, acoustic control and even improved structural efficiency. This study aims to understand the effects of porous DSF on the aerodynamic characteristics of tall buildings using wind tunnel tests. High Frequency Force Balance and pressure tests were performed on the CAARC standard tall building model with a variable porous DSF on the windward face. The introduction of a porous DSF did not adversely affect the overall mean forces and moments experienced by the building, with few differences compared to the standard tall building model. There was also minimal variation between the results for the three porosities tested: 50%, 65% and 80%. The presence of a full-height porous DSF was shown to effectively reduce the mean and fluctuating wind pressure on the side face of the building by about 10%, and a porous DSF over the lower half height of the building was almost as effective. This indicates that the porous DSF could be used to reduce the design load on cladding and fixtures on the side faces of tall buildings, where most damage to facades typically occurs.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.49-56
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• 2016

PURPOSES : In this study, noise reduction effect of a two-layer porous asphalt pavement was investigated through site measurement and computer simulation. METHODS : To examine noise reduction effect, a 3 km long quiet pavement was installed by removing previous normal pavement, which had a rather low porosity. The studied site was a high-rise apartment building surrounded by the quiet pavement and Seoul ring road with heavy traffic volume, indicating relatively high background noise. RESULTS : The measurement result before and after installing the quiet pavement showed a noise reduction effect of 4.3 dB(A) at a distance of 7.5 m from the road. After validating the accuracy of simulation using SoundPLAN, the reduction in SPL(sound pressure level) at the facades by the quiet pavement was predicted by considering five different road conditions generating traffic noise from each road or in the combination of the quiet pavement and Seoul ring road. In the case of no noise from Seoul ring road, noise reduction at the facades was 4.2 dB(A) on average for 702 housing units. With background noise from Seoul ring road, however, the average SPL decreased to 2.0 dB(A). Regarding subjective response of noise, the number of housing units with a noise reduction of over 3 dB(A) was 229 out of 706 units (approximately 32%). For 77 housing units, the noise reduction was between 1~3 dB(A), while it was less than 1 dB(A) for 400 housing units. CONCLUSIONS : The overall result indicates that the quiet pavement is useful to reduce noise evenly at low and high floors compared to noise barriers, especially in the urban situation where background noise is low.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.67-81
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• 2022

While the aerodynamics of solid bluff bodies is reasonably well-understood and methodologies for their reliable numerical simulation are available, the aerodynamics of porous bluff bodies formed by assembling perforated plates has received less attention. The topic is nevertheless of great technical interest, due to their ubiquitous presence in applications (fences, windbreaks and double skin facades to name a few). This work follows previous investigations by the authors, aimed at verifying the consistency of numerical simulations based on the explicit modelling of the perforated plates geometry and their representation by means of pressure-jumps. In this work we further expand such investigations and, contextually, we provide insight into the flow arrangement and its sensitivity to important modelling and setup configurations. To this purpose, Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) and Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) are performed for a 5:1 rectangular cylinder at null angle of attack. Then, using URANS, porosity and attack angle are simultaneously varied. To the authors' knowledge this is the first time in which LES are used to model a porous bluff body and compare results obtained using the explicit modelling approach to those obtained relying on pressure-jumps. Despite the flow organization often shows noticeable differences, good agreement is found between the two modelling strategies in terms of drag force.