Wind tunnel study of wind effects on a high-rise building at a scale of 1:300

Abstract The objective of the present paper is to investigate the unsteady characteristics of the global and local wind loads and their relationships with the oncoming atmospheric boundary layer through wind-tunnel tests on a high-rise building with a well-defined atmospheric boundary layer at a 1:300 scale. Complete information on wind (mean velocity profile, turbulence intensity, power spectrum of the fluctuation, etc.) and global and local wind loads is analyzed. The results of the present study show that, depending on the location, wall-pressure forces on the tower are under the influence of the upstream flow or the shear layers that form at the upstream corners of the building or both of them. Good agreement between the literature and the present study is found regarding the Strouhal number characteristics of the most energetic frequency in the wall-pressure spectra. Based on the analysis of the spectral coherence between wall-pressure signal at different pressure tap locations, the loss of the strong spectral signature for the global wind force in the longitudinal direction is attributed to the loss of phase coherence between pressure signals on these sides.