Full-scale and model investigations of pressures on an industrial/agricultural building

Abstract

A new wind engineering research facility at AFRC Engineering - The Silsoe Structures Building - is described. Selected full-scale wind pressure measurements on this intensively instrumented portal framed structure which features two different eaves cladding details are compared with wind tunnel measurements conducted at the University of Western Ontario and the Building Research Establishment on two 1:100 scale models. To date, comparisons are available only for the curved eaves case where good agreement exists between full-scale and wind tunnel results on the windward wall but elsewhere the agreement is less good although the profiles of the pressure fields are very similar. There is also evidence of greater turbulence generation over the building at model-scale than occurs at full-scale. These discrepancies may be associated with a Reynolds Number/separation modelling problem for the curved eaves case. The presented results illustrate the scope of this current work and include comparisons of the effect on roof pressures of a ridge ventilation slot, of curved as compared with conventional sharp line eaves, and of changing boundary layer roughness.