Experimental assessment of the effects of a porous double skin façade system on cladding loads

Abstract The high-efficiency facades, such as porous double skins, have become increasingly popular due to the recent technological progress in architecture. The so-called porous double skin facade (DSF) systems, which are constituted by a permeable layer over a closed inner facade, are often adopted to reduce the system energy demand. However, as expected, the porous skin alters the wind-induced pressures acting on the inner facade. Therefore, the cladding loads for such a facade system has to be accurately estimated performing wind tunnel tests. Using the low-rise buildings of the New Bocconi Campus as a case study, we present the experimental wind tunnel methodologies utilized to assess the wind-induced peak pressures acting on the inner glazed skin of the porous double skin facade system designed for the case at hands. In particular, the reduction of both the positive and negative peak pressures estimated for the inner facade is addressed when comparing the standard facade to the porous DSF case. In addition, the valuable data set of the pressure signals acquired for the porous DSF system studied, allows one to investigate the dependence of the computed peak pressures on the averaging time utilized for the extreme value estimates.