Safe design of porous Façades exposed to Extreme wind conditions

SaFEx is a two-year research project funded under the PRIN 2022 programme by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR). It addresses the urgent need to improve the wind-resistant design of Permeable Double Skin Façades (PDSFs) — an increasingly popular architectural solution for energy-efficient buildings.

PDSFs consist of a solid inner façade and an outer porous cladding that reduces solar gains and creates a ventilated buffer zone. Despite their growing adoption, PDSFs pose significant challenges in terms of wind loading prediction and safety verification, due to their inherently multiscale geometry and the limitations of existing experimental and numerical methods.

The project aims to

Develop and validate innovative CFD and wind tunnel testing (WTT) techniques for porous façades.
Improve the scientific understanding of aerodynamics in porous bluff bodies.
Create design guidelines for the safe application of PDSFs under extreme wind conditions.

To this purpose, the project combines the use of high-fidelity CFD simulations (by the University of Bologna) and large-scale wind tunnel tests performed at Polytechnic of Milano). It focuses on:

Characterizing aerodynamic forces on individual cladding panels (flat and lamellar types),
Studying porous envelopes without inner buildings,
Evaluating the wind loads on complete model PDSFs.

We expect the project to shed new light on the characterization of the aerodynamic behaviour of permeable elements, their experimental characterization and their numerical simulations with the aim to

Provide reliable design tools for engineers and façade manufacturers,
Reduce current uncertainties in wind loading estimates,
Enable the effective use of CFD and WTT for the design of porous façades in standard design practice.

Sito web di riferimento

SaFEx — Computational Wind Engineering at LAMC — CWE@LAMC

Elenco dei partner:

Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna
Politecnico di Milano

Team di ricerca UNIBO:

Ambiti di ricerca DICAM:

Strutture