Wind Load on Ridge and Field Tiles on a Residential Building: A Full Scale Study

Abstract

This paper presents a large-scale Wall of Wind (WoW) investigation of external and underneath wind pressures on roof tiles installed on a low-rise building. The dimension of the low-rise building tested was 2.74 m (9 ft) long, 2.13 m (7 ft) wide, and 2.13 m (7 ft) high (wall height). The building was tested with interchangeable gable roofs with three different slopes (2:12; 5:12 and 7:12). The field tiles of these gable roofs were tested under three different tile profiles namely: high (HP), medium (MP), and low profiles (LP) in accordance with Florida Building Code of Practice but only the MP profile is discussed in this paper. For the ridge part of the roof, two different types of tiles were considered namely: rounded and three-sided. The results showed that the ridge tiles were exposed to high pressure coefficients as compared to the field tiles, including those located at the corners; considerably higher pressure developed on the gable-end ridge tiles compared to those at the roof center. Positive mean underneath pressure on the field tiles develops on the windward side, thus increasing the net pressures on the windward surface of the roof. On the leeward side, however, reductions in net pressure to a non-significant level were observed due to the opposite direction of the internal and external pressures.