In recent years, with the increase of the quantity of high-rise buildings in Korea, various problems occurred related to the pressure distribution. Generally, there are the excessive pressure difference produced in high-rise buildings, especially on the envelopes and internal partitions of the buildings due to the influence of the combined driving forces such as the stack effect, external wind pressure and mechanical pressure. The pressure difference caused various problems such as malfunction of the elevator doors, noise problems, energy loss due to infiltration, diffusion of indoor pollutants and bacteria, and the thermal discomfort. The excessive pressure difference of the elevator door generates unpleasant noise through the door cracks, and may cause malfunction of the elevator door, especially in top and bottom floors of the shaft.
There are several methods have been proposed for reducing the pressure differences in high-rise buildings in existing studies. The architectural improvement should be considered first in the building design stage.For instance, improving the airtightness of the envelope and designing indoor partitions can reduce pressure difference by controlling infiltration. However, architectural improvement only can be applied for the new buildings, and it is difficult to apply to buildings that have been completed or in use due to difficulties in construction and excessive economic costs. Therefore, in high -rise buildings that are being built recently; architectural improvement is being considered at the design stage. But there is still a large pressure difference on the elevator shafts of the top and bottom floors of high-rise buildings even though architectural improvement is applied.
The thesis proposes the methods for minimizing the problems by the control of pressure difference in the completed buildings based on the exiting research. First, the factors affecting the pressure distribution on high-rise buildings were analyzed and the field measurements in a high-rise office building were conducted to determine the effectiveness of application. In addition, the optimal control methods were verified by evaluating the pressure distribution of the factors derived through the network model simulation.