Effect of Corner Configuration on Wind Pressure Distribution on Tall Buildings

Tall buildings have been traditionally designed to be symmetric rectangular, square, triangular as well as circular in plan, in order to avoid excessive seismic-induced torsional vibrations due to eccentricity, in seismic-prone and highly wind induced regions. But, due to architectural and structural requirements, complicated tall and slender buildings with various corner configuration and cross-sectional shapes are emerged now a day, which are difficult to design using the existing wind load standards only. The principal aim of this study is to investigate the effect of chamfered edged configuration on wind pressure distribution on tall buildings experimentally using open circuit wind tunnel. The test is conducted under a mean wind velocity profile of approaching flow 9.61 m/sec. A total of 2 rigid Perspex sheet models of equal height are prepared at scale of 1:100, for this study, one with rectangular cross-section and another with chamfered vertical edges. Wind pressure values at many pressure points on the model wall surfaces are measured and wind pressure coefficients are calculated under varying wind incidence angles from 0° to 90° for rectangular shape and from 0° to 180° for chamfered edges at 30° interval. The surface and cross sectional variations of mean pressure coefficient are presented in this paper. From this study, it is observed that chamfering vertical edges and wind incidence angle have great effect in altering wind load magnitude.