PREDICTION OF WIND EFFECTS ON BUILDINGS USING COMPUTATIONAL METHODS -REVIEW OF THE STATE-OF-THE-ART

Advancements in computer software and hardware technology provide a ne w direction for analyzing engineering problems. Recently the field of wind engineering has gained significant momentum in the computer model ling process. This paper reviews the state of the art in computational wind engineering, including the finite element method, finite differe nce method, and control volume technique. A portion of this paper summ arizes the research in this area carried out by the authors. Computati ons have been made for a variety of building configurations, including normal wind flow conditions for a building with different aspect rati os, and modelling wind environmental conditions around groups of build ings. The computer modelling technique may eventually enhance the desi gn of buildings and structures against wind loading and supplement the current design practice of using building codes and standards or perf orming experiments in wind tunnels.