Wind Engineering - Wind Loads On Buildings

Wind Loads On Buildings

The design of buildings must account for wind loads, and these are affected by wind shear. For engineering purposes, a power law wind speed profile may be defined as follows:

\ v_z = v_g \cdot \left( \frac {z} {z_g} \right)^ \frac {1} {\alpha}, 0 < z < z_g

where:

= speed of the wind at height
= gradient wind at gradient height
= exponential coefficient


Typically, buildings are designed to resist a strong wind with a very long return period, such as 50 years or more. The design wind speed is determined from historical records using extreme value theory to predict future extreme wind speeds.

Read more about this topic:  Wind Engineering

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