Wind characteristics on building surfaces are used to evaluate natural ventilation of a building. As a type of building component, external shading louvers are applied in hot climatic regions to block solar radiation and provide better visual environments. The structure of external louvers can affect wind-induced characteristics, such as convective heat transfer coefficient, wind pressure and pollutant dispersion around building envelopes. This paper aims to analyze the potential ventilation capacity of a multi-storey building with shading louvers, based on wind pressure coefficient by the numerical method. A reference case was established and a previous study was applied to validate the numerical results. The rotation angle of horizontal louvers is taken from 0° to 75° in the simulation cases. The results show that average wind pressure has the greatest reduction for all floors when rotation angle turns from 60° to 75°. Ventilation openings on the stagnation zone contribute to higher ventilation rates for the windward facade with louvers. The analysis, based on multi-floor and multi-row buildings under shaded conditions, will provide a greater perspective for engineers to make optimal natural ventilation routes in multi-storey buildings with external shading louvers.
As a passive building energy-saving technology, shading systems are usually used to reduce the solar radiation into the unit and reduce the energy consumption of air conditioning system. For multi-storey buildings, shading devices can not only change the indoor thermal environment, but also change the indoor wind environment and air quality because their impact on airflow patterns of natural ventilation. In this paper, the numerical simulation method was used to investigate external shading louvers on the single-sided ventilation performance and indoor air quality of units at different positions in a multi-storey building. Three approaching airflow directions and three rotation angles of louvers were considered and analysed. The results show that the evaluation of ventilation performance of shading louvers in multi-storey buildings is important for shaded buildings, which provide a new perspective for the geometry design of shading louvers and ventilation design of buildings.