Monitoring of wind effects on a low-rise building during typhoon landfalls and comparison to wind tunnel test results

A full-scale instrumented experimental low-rise building was built and implemented to monitor wind effects on the building during typhoons. Field measurements of the near-surface wind velocity field and wind-induced pressures on the low-rise building were carried out during the passages of 10 typhoons in 2008-2011. This paper presents a combined study of field measurements and wind tunnel testing. Detailed analysis of the measured data has been conducted to investigate the typhoon-generated wind characteristics and wind-induced pressures on the roof of the experimental building under extreme wind conditions during typhoon landfalls. On the other hand, wind tunnel experiments have been performed to study the wind loads on the low-rise building. The model test results were compared with the full-scale measurements to evaluate the accuracy of the model test results and the adequacy of the techniques used in the wind tunnel tests. It was found that the wind tunnel tests underestimated the real fluctuating and negative peak pressure coefficients on a roof corner zone for quartering winds. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.