Spatial extrapolation of pressure time series on low buildings using proper orthogonal decomposition

This paper presents a methodology for spatial extrapolation of wind-induced pressure time series from a corner bay to roof locations on a low building away from the corner through the application of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The approach is based on the concept that pressure time series in the far field can be approximated as a linear combination of a series of modes and principal coordinates, where the modes are extracted from the full roof pressure field of an aerodynamically similar building and the principal coordinates are calculated from data at the leading corner bay only. The reliability of the extrapolation for uplift time series in nine bays for a cornering wind direction was examined. It is shown that POD can extrapolate reasonably accurately to bays near the leading corner, given the first three modes, but the extrapolation degrades further from the corner bay as the spatial correlations decrease.