Wind Pressure Loads on L- and U-Shaped Buildings

摘要

This paper presents the results of a program of wind tunnel model tests on pressure distributions for irregular-plan buildings (L- and U- shaped buildings). The experiments were carried out in two different wind tunnels (an open and a close-circuit wind tunnel) and a multichannel pressure measurement system was used to compute instantaneous values of loads on 1:100 scale models. The same tests were made on a cube-shaped building as an experimental validation. The effectiveness of the building shape in changing the surface pressure distributions is assessed over an extended range of wind directions. The experimental data for the L- and U-shaped models showed different wall pressure distributions from those expected for single rectangular blocks. This can be an important issue to be considered for building design. Furthermore, a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) code was used to illustrate some particular cases and provide a better understanding of the flow patterns around these irregular-plan buildings and induced pressure distributions on their faces. Computed pressure coefficients have also been compared with experimentally obtained values for normal wind incidence.