ICSECM 2015 - Wind Design of Slender Tall Buildings: CFD Approach

Abstract

Urbanization has led to the uprising of such buildings in densely populated areas where land availability and prices are a concern in such areas. Where such concerns exist the land must be fully exploited and thus constructions of tall buildings are always found as a solution in such areas. Wind behaviour is a key designing parameter for such building and need to be assessed accurately in the preliminary and secondary design stages. As most of the existing design codes have their own limitations in providing necessary guidelines for the wind designing, such as height limits of the buildings, the existing practice is to conduct wind tunnel tests to determine the wind induced loads on the buildings. However, the cost of the wind tunnel test is comparatively high and conducting wind tunnel tests at preliminary design stage is uneconomical. The rapid growth of Computation Fluid Dynamic (CFD) technique over the last few decades enables Engineers to simulate the wind behaviour around moving objects such as aeroplanes and automobiles. Therefore use of such methodology to predict wind loads on the buildings, especially at the preliminary design stages could be beneficial. This paper discusses a preliminary investigation that carried out on a non-typical 350m tall slender building using CFD approach.Urbanization has led to the uprising of such buildings in densely populated areas where land availability and prices are a concern in such areas. Where such concerns exist the land must be fully exploited and thus constructions of tall buildings are always found as a solution in such areas. Wind behaviour is a key designing parameter for such building and need to be assessed accurately in the preliminary and secondary design stages. As most of the existing design codes have their own limitations in providing necessary guidelines for the wind designing, such as height limits of the buildings, the existing practice is to conduct wind tunnel tests to determine the wind induced loads on the buildings. However, the cost of the wind tunnel test is comparatively high and conducting wind tunnel tests at preliminary design stage is uneconomical. The rapid growth of Computation Fluid Dynamic (CFD) technique over the last few decades enables Engineers to simulate the wind behaviour around moving objects such as aeroplanes and automobiles. Therefore use of such methodology to predict wind loads on the buildings, especially at the preliminary design stages could be beneficial. This paper discusses a preliminary investigation that carried out on a non-typical 350m tall slender building using CFD approach.