Experimental and numerical study on mean pressure distributions around an isolated gable roof building with and without openings

Abstract

In this study, the influence of opening position and wind direction on pressure distribution around isolated gable roof buildings with and without openings were investigated. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed and compared with wind tunnel experimental results. One of the aims of this study was to develop well-defined design guidelines for typical gable roof structures, identifying critical localised pressure rises due to different wind attack angles. Existing international standards provide limited design guidelines for localised wind pressure distribution of such buildings, especially in cases where there are openings. Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to obtain mean pressure distributions of critical areas of the building under different wind directions with four different opening configurations, namely, an enclosed building, a building with one windward opening, a building with one windward opening and one sidewall opening, and a building with one windward opening and two sidewall openings. A CFD-based numerical simulation approach was used to create a virtual wind tunnel in the computational domain. Sensitivity analyses for grid resolutions and turbulence models of simulations were performed for the building with a windward opening.Results from the numerical simulations show good agreement with the experimental results on pressure distribution. The validated models were used to identify critical areas of the buildings that must be considered in the design stage. The relevant pressure coefficients are presented and compared with the standards. The importance of performing a comprehensive wind study using a numerical approach or wind tunnel tests is highlighted.