Wind Stress & Houses

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Wind Stress & Houses:

"long low pressure tail because the pressured air shoulders

dissipate their pressure outwardly as well as into the wake.

You have a long lag in the rate of re-establishment of pressure

equilibrium in the wake, and much energy is required from some-

where in the form of high pressure to satisfy the long low-

pressure streamer. This wind wake is mildly dissimilar in

behavior to the water wake of ships in that water is approxi-

mately noncompressible and such low pressure as enters a ship's

wake must take place in the form of air bubble expansions

which whiten the ship's wake for great distances.

"The heating energy inside buildings is converted in the air

of rooms into the work of expanding air, and expanding it

within enclosed chambers necessarily develops an increase in

pressure. So you have a high pressure in this side of your

house wall and an enormous low-pressure tail on the outside to

be satisfied, and your high pressure inside the house simply

is extracted by successive energy conversions right through a

masonry wall to satisfy the low pressure as does gravity pull

the water down Niagara Falls. The high pressure is drafted

directly through chinks or cracks, ergo the fine showing of

weather stripping.

Cite DESIGNING A NEW INDUSTRY, (RBF Reader, p.202), 1946