Influence of upstream surrounding buildings on wind pressures acting on low-rise building

A large number of wind pressure measurements were performed to investigate the influence of upstream surrounding buildings on the wind pressures and forces on a cubical low-rise building. The primary purpose of the present study was to understand the effects of proximity buildings by introducing the two different normalization methods for the wind pressures and to examine the methodology of design application. The considered parameters were the area densities and long upstream distance under the turbulent boundary layer representing a suburban area. Results show that wind pressures decrease with increasing area density but the variations of mean and fluctuating components within one area density are relatively small. And most of the increases in the local wind pressure coefficients originate from the rapid decrease in local velocity pressures at the model position. And by using the interference factor which is an exponential function of area density only, it was found that the wind loads on structural frames and component/cladding element of the target low-rise building in group can be easily evaluated.