A new parametric equation for the wind pressure coefficient for low-rise buildings

摘要

The building wind pressure coefficient (C_p) is an important quantity which is used in many fields of building engineering including heating and cooling load calculations, ventilation design, and structural design. C_p is a dimensionless quantity that represents the proportionality between the wind velocity and the pressure generated on the surface of the building. Values for C_p can be obtained from full-scale building tests, wind tunnel tests, or, more commonly, from parametric equations derived from tests. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a set of wind tunnel tests and to present a new set of surface-averaged wind pressure coefficient values for low-rise buildings and a new parametric equation determined from a curve fit to the surface-averaged data. The resulting equations are compared to another popular low-rise parametric equation and another popular wind pressure coefficient database. The new parametric equation is found to fit both databases better than the older parametric equation.