Interference effects on wind loads as prescribed by codes and standards: can they be generalized?

Abstract

Understanding and quantifying the effects of aerodynamic interference is fundamental to designing safe and efficient buildings; however, there is a complexity in this phenomenon that characterizes it as the greatest challenge of wind engineering and thus limits improving design guidelines in a normative way. Therefore, this study investigated the impacts of building interference on wind-induced loads on a tall building through wind tunnel tests conducted using the synchronous pressure measurement technique. This impact was quantified using the interference factors (IFs) on the along-wind, across-wind and torsional force coefficients, which were mapped considering different wind angles, relative positions and number of buildings, in addition to the terrain roughness. It was observed that the protection effect in a static analysis is a dominant phenomenon in most studied scenarios when there is wind interference. The largest extension of the amplification zones occurred in scenarios in which the wind blew against the smallest facade of the analyzed building and the largest facade of the interfering building, where the coefficient of torsional moment was more sensitive to changes in wind turbulence.