Experimental study on wind load characteristics of rooftop canopies of low and medium rise buildings

Abstract

Rooftop canopy is popular in buildings, and it is prone to wind induced damage due to its light weight and slender configuration. However, investigation on the wind load on this kind of structure has not been conducted, leading to a wind resistant design without a firm basis. This study measures the wind pressure acting on the rooftop canopy considering 4 different underneath building heights, whose prototype vary from 6m to 24m. The mean, fluctuating, and extreme wind pressure coefficients are examined. The correlation coefficients between the pressures at different positions are also checked. Results show that the underneath building height has significant effect on the wind load coefficients of the canopy. The correlation between wind pressures on both the upper and lower surfaces decreases gradually with the increase of the building height. The most unfavorable height of building found in this study is 12m, with the largest uplift net pressure coefficient of the canopy close to −7.0. Comparison with the design values for claddings of free roof in ASCE 7–22 shows that the rooftop canopy can practically have much larger uplift (negative) net pressure in the edge region.