Wind Gradient - Engineering

Engineering

The design of buildings must account for wind loads, and these are affected by wind gradient. The respective gradient levels, usually assumed in the Building Codes, are 500 meters for cities, 400 meters for suburbs, and 300 m for flat open terrain. For engineering purposes, a power law wind speed profile may be defined as follows:

where:

= speed of the wind at height

= gradient wind at gradient height

= exponential coefficient