Exploring rapid prototyping techniques for validating numerical models of naturally ventilated buildings

An alternative to using numerical simulation to model ventilation performance is to model internal air flows using water-based experimental models. However, these can be time consuming and the manual nature of model assembly means that exploring detail and design variations is often prohibitively expensive. Additive, or Rapid manufacturing processes can build physical models directly from 3D-CAD data and is widely used in product development within the aero-automotive and consumer goods industries. This paper describes ongoing work exploring the application of such techniques for the production of physical models which can be used in their own right in water-based testing or for Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation. The findings presented here suggest such techniques present a worthwhile alternative to traditional model fabrication methods.