Hydrostatic Pressure: An Absolutely Essential Concept for Architects to Understand

Course Description

Hydrostatic pressure – the term itself – is just one of those things that makes you sound smart. But the concept itself seems really intimidating! Good thing it’s actually pretty straightforward. For water to become a problem for our building enclosures, there needs to be some kind of driving force pushing it to the interior. For masonry buildings, that force is often capillarity (water wicking through a porous material, like you see when you dip a paper towel into a cup of water). But for framed buildings, the main force we’re usually contending with is hydrostatic pressure: the force that water exerts against a surface when it’s held up against that surface. This short presentation describes the physics of hydrostatic pressure and applies it to a couple common architectural details.

Course Instructor Christine Williamson

Course Length 10:00

Published 15 Sep 2022