An experimental investigation of pressures developed on buildings of different height

It is now well known that large suction pressures develop along the leading edges of a building when the wind is incident at oblique angles due to the formation of corner vortices. It is not uncommon for this large suction pressure to cause localized destruction, which may even result in the total failure of roofs. A research team lead by Mehta at Texas Tech University carried out wind-pressure measurements on a full-scale low-rise building [1,2]. These measurements are expected to provide many reliable and high-quality data concerning pressure on a low-rise building. The objective here is to make a comparative study of the pressures on the building using 1:100 scale models. The height of the Texas Tech building is only 4 m, which is usually considered a low-rise building height, and the data is applied to all the other buildings around that height. The idea of the study here is to investigate whether the changes in height is affecting the building pressures or not. The experimental results revealed a considerable effect on surface pressures due to changes in the height from 4 m to 6 m and 7 m, both at normal and oblique incidences.