Comparison of five major wind codes with Sri Lankan context

Abstract

The design manual “Design building for high winds – Sri Lanka” is the only mandatory document available for wind load design in Sri Lanka. This document extensively covers the design and construction of low rise buildings. However, the evolution of tall building construction requires advances for Sri Lankan wind loading standards, which cannot be prepared yet due to lack of available data and technology. Therefore, designers have used different international standards for wind design for medium and high rise buildings without understanding the impact of many different standards in a particular design fully. Hence, some of these common international wind standards such as CP 3 Chapter V – Part 2:1972, BS 6399.2:1997, AS 1170.2:1989, AS/NZS 1170.2:2002 and EN 1991-1-4:2005 are evaluated in this paper by considering loads exerted at ultimate limit state on the structural members such as beam and column members, shells such as shear walls and supports of a building by wind loads to understand the suitability of these codes for Sri Lankan context. The serviceability limit state behavior of a building is also evaluated according to the methods given in wind loading standards. The effective increase of the return period due to the use of load factors for wind loads is also important in order to achieve adequate risk level for different type of buildings. Finally conclusions have been drawn about the selected wind loading standards, which can be used with Sri Lankan context until country could produce its own wind code.