WIND EFFECTS ON TALL BUILDINGS

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to carry out extensive wind tunnel test on rigid model of T-shaped building for evaluating pressure coefficients on different faces of building model. Two models of T-shaped building are used in the present study. One is made of ply sheet for force measurement and other is of transparent Perspex sheet (6mm thickness) which is used for pressure measurement. The T-shaped model is made in the geometrical model scale ratio of 1:200. An open terrain wind model classified as terrain category 2 was simulated using a set of small cube box and roughness elements placed upstream of the building model inside the wind tunnel. Detailed experimental studies are carried out to find the pressure coefficients around the building for isolated building model. Various instruments are also used along with the data acquisition system for the Base force measurement and the Surface pressure measurement over the entire building model in the wind tunnel. To obtain the analytical response of the buildings, ETABS software package is used in the present study. Only linear static method is considered for analyzing the building frames for dead load, live load and wind load combination. The mean responses i.e. base shear and base moment of pair of buildings located in close proximity of geometric configurations having T-plan shaped is evaluated using the experimentally obtained mean pressure coefficient. Block-DI and block-D2 of T-shaped building is analyzed for wind incidence angle 00 using experimentally obtained pressure coefficient and the response i.e. base shear is compare with force obtained from rigid model test at a geometrical scale of 1:200. 9.6% error is found to differ between the software and experimental results This percentage error is under the acceptable range (0-15%) which shows that the present study on wind tunnel achieves high degree of accuracy. Keywords: wind tunnel, model, wind pressure, pressure coefficient, terrain, base shear