Abstract
This study focuses on the impacts of apartment building arrangements on the outdoor and indoor air quality - the efficiency of natural ventilation in the outside/inside area of an apartment with consideration to the characteristics of an air flow in outside area depending on the types of the arrangements, the main direction of the wind, and the outside wind pressure on the building facade. As indices to evaluate the efficiency of natural ventilation, the concepts of "Age of Air" and "Purging Flow Rate(PFR)" were used in this study. As indices to classify the efficiency of indoor natural ventilation, the mean values of the wind pressure differences between the front and the back elevations of an apartment building were used. The research showed that the PFR of each apartment building arrangement ranges from 0.867 to 3.253. The "minus-shaped" arrangement showed the highest PFR, 2.306; the "zigzag-shaped" arrangement measured 1.889; the "angle-shaped" arrangement measured 1.465, and the "square-shaped" arrangement measured 1.241. Depending on the direction of the wind, the pressure differences range extremely, with variations from 170% to 2300%. Thus, the indoor natural ventilation efficiency can be changed by the pressure differences of the wind, which are sensitive to the main direction of the wind even though the structure and planning of the apartment complexes are the same. Despite the same direction of the wind, even the efficiency can be diverse. This study showed how to predict the most beneficial apartment building arrangement for the profitable natural ventilation efficiency in each direction of the wind.
