Stack effect is the movement of air into and out of buildings, chimneys, flue gas stacks, or other containers, and is driven by buoyancy. Buoyancy occurs due to a difference in indoor-to-outdoor air density resulting from temperature and moisture differences. The result is either a positive or negative buoyancy force. The greater the thermal difference and the height of the structure, the greater the buoyancy force, and thus the stack effect. The stack effect is also referred to as the "chimney effect", and it helps drive natural ventilation, infiltration and fires. (see Kaprun disaster and King's Cross fire)
Read more about Stack Effect: Stack Effect in Buildings, Stack Effect in Flue Gas Stacks and Chimneys, The Driving Force For The Stack Effect, The Flow Induced By The Stack Effect
Famous quotes containing the words stack and/or effect:
““Farewell to barn and stack and tree,
Farewell to Severn shore.
Terence, look your last at me,
For I come home no more.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“We all have—to put it as nicely as I can—our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower centres act: they act with terrible power that sometimes destroys us; but they don’t talk.... Since the war the lower centres have become vocal. And the effect is that of an earthquake. For they speak truths that have never been spoken before—truths that the makers of our domestic institutions have tried to ignore.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)