Field Measurements of Wind Effects on a Moveable Instrumented Building during Typhoon Landfalls

Full-scale measurement is considered to be the most reliable method for evaluating wind effects on buildings and structures. This project proposes an innovative strategy of using a full-scale moveable instrumented building to monitor extreme wind effects during typhoon landfalls. The major objective of this study is to further understand typhoon-generated wind characteristics and wind effects on typical low-rise buildings under extreme wind conditions. Feedback from the field measurements will also be useful in assessing the accuracy of related wind tunnel tests and in evaluating the adequacy of codes of practice and analytical and numerical methods.The experimental study consists of two closely related tasks:Task 1: The first task involves the development of the existing field measurement program that is currently operational to a limited extent. With the support of this grant, the existing program will be extended to establish a moveable instrumented building with the capacity to vary its dimensions and shape, along with a portable meteorological tower. This will allow field measurements of wind field and associated building surface pressures on the full-scale low-rise building in the path of landfalling typhoons in the southeast coastal regions of China for investigating wind effects on the building prone to extreme wind events.Task 2: In the second phase, a series of wind tunnel experiments will be performed to study wind effects on the low-rise building. The field measurements will be compared with the model test results for verification and improvement of wind tunnel simulation and testing techniques. Comparing wind tunnel test results with actual performance is also useful in providing better understanding of the physics such as the Reynolds number, incident turbulence effects, model scale issues, and so on.The results generated from this comprehensive project are expected to be very useful to the wind engineering community, and the outcome of this study will be of considerable interest and practical use to engineers and researchers involved in the wind-resistant design of buildings and structures.