PRESSURE COEFFICIENTS FOR LOW-RISE BUILDING ENVELOPES DERIVED FROM FULL-SCALE EXPERIMENTS

Full-scale measurements of surface pressures have been completed on a range of single-span buildings: several examples are presented for ill ustration. Methods for analysing full-scale data to obtain pressure co efficients have been examined. The quasi-steady approach has been foun d to provide an appropriate basis since the results so obtained lead t o predictions of structural strains in an instrumented building which are in good agreement with measured strains. This provides justificati on for an analysis method which is outlined here and which, it is reco mmended, should be used for the derivation of pressure coefficients fo r design codes and standards. Full-scale measurements have indicated t he importance of the geometric parameters of building height, span and roof slope in the assessment of wind loads. For the design of rudimen tary buildings such as domestic dwellings, a simplified set of coeffic ients is presented for single- and two-storey domestic housing. This h as particular application in developing cyclone-resistant housing. Fur ther measurements and analysis are required to produce generalised pre ssure distributions for low-rise buildings.