KNOWLEDGE-BASED WIND LOADING FOR ENVELOPE DESIGN - BEYOND BUILDING CODES

Wind loading is one of the most sophisticated requirements in building envelope design. The importance of wind loading depends on a number o f factors such as building dimensions and geometries, surroundings, te rrains and wind conditions. The evaluation process for wind loading on buildings, usually laborious and error-prone, could be automated by u sing computer tools. This paper refers to a knowledge-based expert sys tem developed for the estimation of the wind loading on low buildings of various roof geometries. The domain knowledge of wind loading is ge nerated not only from the provisions of building codes, but also from wind-tunnel experimental results and literature information, The gener al structure of the system and development strategies are briefly disc ussed in this paper. Application examples are provided to illustrate t he implementation of the system for the design of building envelope, p articularly the roofs of low buildings.