Abstract
The aerodynamic performance of a roof depends significantly on its shape and size, among other factors. For instance, large roofs of industrial low-rise buildings may behave differently compared to those of residential homes. The main objective of this study is to experimentally investigate how perimeter solid parapets can alter the flow pattern around a low-rise building with a large aspect ratio of width/height of about 7.6, the case of industrial buildings/shopping centers. Solid parapets of varied sizes are added to the roof and tested in an open-jet simulator in a comparative study to understand their impact on roof pressure coefficients. Roof pressures were measured in the laboratory for cases with and without parapets under different wind direction angles (representative of straight-line winds under open terrain conditions). The results show that using a parapet can alter wind pressures on large roofs. Parapets can modify the flow pattern around buildings and change the mean and peak pressures. The mean pressure pattern shows a reduction in the length of the separation bubble due to the parapet. The parapet of 14% of the building’s roof height is the most efficient at reducing mean and peak pressures compared to other parapet heights.
Highlights
1.1 BackgroundThe aerodynamic problem of buildings and other bluff bodies presents a real challenge compared to streamlined bodies [1, 2]
The importance of the current study is that parapets and other architectural features are difficult to be tested in a typical wallbounded wind tunnel, due to blockage effects and scale issues
For each wind direction angle (0, 45, and 90 deg.) and parapet height (0 ft. (0 m), 3 ft. (0.914 m), 4.5 ft. (1.372 m), and 6 ft. (1.829 m)), the contours are presented in terms of mean and peak pressure coefficients
Summary
The aerodynamic problem of buildings and other bluff bodies presents a real challenge compared to streamlined bodies [1, 2] This is because bluff bodies are associated with flow separation that makes direct experimental testing and numerical solution indispensable for the understanding of the physics and the evaluation of the flow-induced forces [3,4,5,6,7]. The roof components and claddings of low-rise buildings can be subject to damage during windstorms due to fluctuating pressures. These pressures can cause serious problems to the integrity of low-rise buildings, such as residential homes, large industrial buildings, and shopping centers. Economic efficiency, and alleviation of wind issues, wind engineering research is vital to current and future development around the globe
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