Numerical investigation on the air flow characteristics of a core house with the presence of kitchen house using computational fluid dynamics

Most of the rural houses in Malaysia are classified as non-engineered building. These rural houses are characterized by having overhang roof and kitchen house. There have been many cases of such houses being damaged during thunderstorm events. This study investigates the changes in the air flow characteristics due to the presence of a kitchen house. The roof pitch of core house, overhang and gap height were maintained at 27°, 0.5 m and 0.5 m, respectively. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations based on Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS) was used together with turbulence model, RNG k-ε. The results showed that the presence of a kitchen house slightly increased the suction on the roof ridge but significantly changed the flow pattern in the windward direction.