Rain on building façades

Rain is one of the main causes of moisture damage to the building envelope, leading to problems such as rain penetration, frost and salt damage, discoloration by leaching, soiling by differential washing, etc. The potential of deterioration due to rain depends on the façade material, the junction of building envelope components, the overall geometry of the building, but also the presence or absence of modulation on the façade. In this paper, Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are used to analyze these effects and illustrated with examples taken in Sicily. It is firstly shown that buildings protect themselves from driving rain due to the wind blocking effect, but that façade open…