Parameters affecting wind-driven rain and its effect on high-rise buildings

Water leakage is a common problem during wind and rain for high-rise buildings. This problem arises due mainly to inadequate knowledge on the phenomenon of wind-driven rain acting on building faces. The design and testing criteria for water tightness are not well defined. This paper sets out a framework for the calculation of the effects of wind-driven rain on buildings using wind and rain information and based on computational fluid dynamics method. The dependency of the effects on the local climatic conditions is examined. Wind-driven rain characteristics are calculated for buildings situated in different geographic regions, e.g. Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney, and are compared. The effects of building height and build geometry are investigated.