DESIGN CODE, FULL-SCALE AND NUMERICAL DATA FOR WIND LOADS ON FREESTANDING WALLS

Following the release in 1991 of Draft BS6399, Part 2: Code of practic e for wind loading, concern arose over the appearance therein of signi ficantly increased wind pressure loadings for free-standing walls. Thi s paper reviews the data and compares them with data from other recogn ised design sources, both traditional and recently introduced. The res ults of full-scale wind pressure measurements on two long, 5 m high ma sonry walls are presented together with the results from a series of c omputational fluid dynamics analyses on a two-dimensional wall and com parisons are made with the data from the recognised design sources whi ch are all based on wind-tunnel results. An unsatisfactorily diverse r ange of data is shown to exist in the design sources. A programme of f ull-scale measurements is considered to be required to provide an inde pendent appraisal of the wind-tunnel data on which existing design dat a are based and to establish reliable and economic loading data for fr ee-standing walls.