Some indirect scientific paternity of Alan G. Davenport

Abstract

Since 1976, I have had the opportunity to meet Dr. Davenport frequently for courses, the code committee (ISO TC 98), international conferences, and private meetings. In 1979, I spent 3 weeks as an academic visitor at Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory of The University of Western Ontario. It was the starting point for a lot of exchanges. I had the chance to organize a course in 1983, in which he taught together with Barry Vickery. In the framework of the ISO TC 98 norm committee, Dr. Davenport wrote, in a few hours in Vienna, a new and very simple type of code of practice for the wind loads on buildings. This was the basis for the Swiss Code and now for the simplified method of the Eurocode. Much of our experimental work is the extension of Davenport's ideas, which he developed in his works and through private discussions. I plan to report on all these developments in this paper. Three years ago, Dr. Davenport acted as an expert for the C. Alexandrou Thesis. Whenever in Switzerland, Alan never forgets to contact us. This paper is also written in the context of the elaboration of the Eurocode. It gives us the opportunity to recall some useful basic concepts well known among the wind engineering specialists. Finally, two original and recent works of the author's wind engineering group are presented.