Experimental and numerical investigation of pumping ventilation on the leeward side of a cubic building

Unstable interaction between shear layers that form in the wake of an isolated building exposed to wind can drive natural pumping ventilation in windward and leeward facing rooms with two or more horizontally separated openings. This paper presents an experimental and numerical study of pumping ventilation in a three-story cubic building with two leeward openings in its middle floor. Reduced-scaled measurements were performed in the University of Gävle atmospheric-boundary-layer wind tunnel. The ventilation mechanism was investigated using smoke visualization, hot wire anemometry and particle image velocimetry. Effective ventilation rates were obtained using a tracer gas decay method.