Influence of incident wind turbulence on pressure fluctuations near flat-roof corners

Abstract

Full-scale experiments were conducted on the low-rise experimental building at the Wind Engineering Research Field Laboratory of Texas Tech University with the aim to understand the mechanism for generation of the conical-vortex flow and its associated high roof-surface suctions. The clear cause-and-effect relationship between the incident wind, the conical vortices, and the induced roof-corner high-suction pressures has been confirmed through analyzing the simultaneously collected wind and pressure data and the synchronized conical-vortex images. Both horizontal and vertical wind angles of attack were found to affect the formation of conical vortices and the generation of high roof-corner suctions significantly. The critical role of the vertical wind angle in inducing extremely high suction peaks is discussed in detail as an effort to understand the basic mechanism for peak pressure generation in the roof-corner region. Thus, for a complete understanding of the turbulence effect of the incident wind on the fluctuations of the roof-corner surface pressures, the incident wind needs to be considered as a three-dimensional velocity vector, as it is in reality.