WIND EFFECTS ON SNOW ACCUMULATION ON TWO-LEVEL FLAT ROOFS

When estimating snow accumulation on a building roof in a heavy-snowfall district, structural engineers and architects realize that it is important to know its volume and drift. Snow accumulation around buildings is usually investigated by snow wind tunnel tests. However, it is not easy to conduct such tests. Snow accumulation is closely related to the wind flow pattern around a building. The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between snow accumulation and wind flow around buildings and to thus predict the snow accumulation from wind flow patterns from wind tunnel tests. This paper investigates snow accumulation and wind flow around two-level flat-roofed buildings. Snow accumulation patterns on roofs were demonstrated from snow and wind tunnel test results and field measurement results. Furthermore, wind flow patterns around buildings were clarified in detail from wind tunnel test results. Finally, the relationship between snowdrifts on roofs and velocity fields around buildings was obtained.