Effects of facade appurtenances on the local pressure of high-rise building

Abstract

The effects of façade appurtenances of high-rise building on local peak wind pressures were investigated through a series of wind tunnel experiments. Totally 21 appurtenances configurations simulated by thin horizontal splitter plates were studied. The unfavorable wind directions causing the largest peak pressure and the locations of the largest peak pressure were checked. It is noted that the locations of largest positive peak pressures can be strongly affected by the changes of vertical distance of plates. The area of large positive peak pressures of the models with appurtenances can be greatly smaller than the model without appurtenances. It is also found that the largest negative peak pressure on the higher leading corner can be mostly reduced by 42% from the smooth surface condition. By further checking the first four orders of moment of the probability density distribution of the pressure at upper leading corner, it is found that the splitter plates can strongly affect the characteristics of the probability distribution. The results also show that the appurtenances can not only reduce the negative local peak pressure of the higher leading corner on side face, but also dramatically reduce the variation range of negative peak pressure on the whole side face.