WIND PRESSURE DISTRIBUTION ON LOW-RISE BUILDINGS WITH CYLINDRICAL ROOFS

Wind is one of the important loads to be considered while designing the roofs of low-rise buildings. The structural designers refer to relevant code of practices of various countries dealing with wind loads while designing building roofs. However, available information regarding wind pressure coefficients on cylindrical roofs is limited to single span only. Information about wind pressure coefficients on multi-span cylindrical roofs is not available in standards on wind loads. Present paper describes the details of the experimental study carried out on the models of low-rise buildings with multi-span cylindrical roofs in an open circuit boundary layer wind tunnel. Wind pressure values are measured at many pressure points made on roof surface of the rigid models under varying wind incidence angles. Two cases namely, single-span and two-span are considered. The experimental results are presented in the form of contours of mean wind pressure coefficients. Results presented in the paper are of great use for the structural designers while designing buildings with cylindrical roofs. These values can also be used by the experts responsible for revising wind loading codes from time to time.