Model for Buildings Cross Ventilation

Unlike many other engineering products, where a prototype model is built, tested and modified, buildings can only be examined after they are built. It is then too late to correct any design mistake. Therefore, architects depend on scaled models to simulate as close as possible the final product and test the design. The currently available approach for students as well as professionals to simulate cross ventilation is to build a small abstract physical model for the designed building and to put the physical model in a wind tunnel. Lines of smoke are passed in the wind tunnel to allow visualizing the behavior of wind in and around the building. While this approach can provide simulation with reasonable accuracy, it is rarely used and for several good reasons. First, wind tunnels are expensive to build and take large space. Few universities around the world can afford having one. Second, building a physical model to test a design is a time consuming process, especially when small modifications need to be done to optimize the design. As a result, fewer options are examined and the study process is compromised.With the continuous development in computer software capabilities, it seems that using them to overcome these difficulties in an appropriate new approach. If well designed, a computer tool can provide flexible, affordable and easy to use learning tool to help architecture students in understanding cross ventilation by testing alternative design configurations. This paper provides a model that use computer simulation capabilities to visualize the movement of wind through and around a building.