ERIES-Transient Wind Loading

The project has recorded surface pressure measurements over a portal-framed building of eaves height H and simultaneous velocity measurements, made at a height H above the leading corner of the building. Static pressure was also recorded simultaneously at a position to the side of the building model. The aim of this work is to quantify the effect of flow accelerations and changes in vertical wind angle (pitch) on the pressure coefficients over the building. The long-term purpose of this work is to link these changes to wind loading due to extreme, non-synoptic wind events such as downbursts, and aid the development of methods which will allow standard, ABL-type wind tunnels to replace highly specialized downburst/tornado simulators in non-synoptic wind loading quantification.

It should be noted that there is no fixed scaling for this work, though appropriate care must be taken when applying the data, ensuring that the scales of turbulence in the wind tunnel tests are realistic when scaled to the system being analyzed.