PRESSURE-EQUALIZATION AND PARAMETERS AFFECTING ITS PERFORMANCE

摘要

In designing pressure equalized rainscreen (PER) walls, the total venting area, the cavity volume and the air barrier stiffness are generally considered the key factors controlling the performance of pressure equalization whereas the effects of vent configuration and distribution on overall performance remain not clear and need further experimental and theoretical investigation. The objective of this paper is to study the influence of these factors through a series of laboratory experiments. Different parameters are isolated to identify the effects of differing vent configurations and distributions. Cyclic pressures are generated to simulate the wind load over a wide range of frequency. A variety of venting conditions was achieved by aluminium venting sheets with different number, shape, and size of holes. The work is meant to identify the need for developing a comprehensive computational model to address the above factors. The finding shows that the damping effect observed from the experimental study was much smaller that the usual assumption for the theoretical model. Furthermore, the shape of vent holes was observed to have little effect on the P.E. performance.