NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE PRESSURE DIFFERENCE FORCE BETWEEN INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF A BUILDING DURING A SUDDEN CHANGE IN WIND VELOCITY

Abstract

A steep decline of atmospheric pressure by a tornado causes a difference between the internal and external pressure of the building, exerting a significant force on the roof or exterior walls of the building. Previous studies have proposed experimental methods in which the model is subjected only to a sudden drop in air pressure under a calm, using a gust wind tunnel. In this study, we attempted to reproduce the experimental method of examining differential pressure by a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. As a result, the following findings were obtained. 1) To reproduce internal pressure fluctuations caused by a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure by numerical fluid dynamics simulations, it is necessary to perform the CFD simulation using a compressible fluid. 2) The sign and magnitude of the static pressure fluctuations depend on the position of the pressure reference point. 3) The internal building pressure obtained from the analysis results can be reproduced by the internal pressure response equation used in previous studies.