CHARACTERISTIC PRESSURE DISTRIBUTION SHAPES AND LOAD REPETITIONS FOR THE WIND LOADING OF LOW BUILDING ROOF PANELS

This paper summarizes a study in which 128 simultaneous pressure time histories were measured over roof panels at various locations on a var iety of low building models in two types of terrain. The pressures wer e analyzed using proper orthogonal decomposition to determine their ch aracteristic shapes, and to determine potential simplifications of the complex pressure patterns, The effectiveness of the simplifications w as evaluated by examining various structural loading responses to both the simplified patterns and the original time histories. Representati ve relationships between the amplitude and frequency of loading were d erived.