Shape Effects on the Wind-induced Response of High-rise Buildings

This paper explored the effect of building shape on the wind-induced response of a structure through a comprehensive investigation of wind tunnel studies performed at Rowan Williams Davies and Irwin, Inc. (RWDI). The study focused on buildings with foot prints of square, circular, triangular, rectangular and elliptical shapes. Seed buildings were selected from an inventory of structures previously tested in a low-speed boundary layer wind tunnel (BLWT). The measured wind tunnel data for each of the sample seeds were factored to match a representative building shape at full scale for comparison purposes. Load patterns attributed to the cross-sectional shape of the structure were observed in the results. To provide a baseline value for the wind loads, the computed responses for the seeds were compared against the values given by the 2005 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 7-05 Standard. The base load comparisons illustrated how certain building shapes perform in wind events.