2024 - 2025
Stefanie Gillmeier
Anjali K.R. Jayakumari
Mike Jesson
David Soper
Mark Sterling
Greg Kopp
2024 - 2025
Transient Wind Loading
TWL
Dataset Description
The project has recorded surface pressure measurements over a portal-framed building of eaves height H and simultaneous velocity measurements, made at a height H above the leading corner of the building. Static pressure was also recorded simultaneously at a position to the side of the building model. The aim of this work is to quantify the effect of flow accelerations and changes in vertical wind angle (pitch) on the pressure coefficients over the building. The long-term purpose of this work is to link these changes to wind loading due to extreme, non-synoptic wind events such as downbursts, and aid the development of methods which will allow standard, ABL-type wind tunnels to replace highly specialized downburst/tornado simulators in non-synoptic wind loading quantification.
It should be noted that there is no fixed scaling for this work, though appropriate care must be taken when applying the data, ensuring that the scales of turbulence in the wind tunnel tests are realistic when scaled to the system being analyzed.
Specimens
1. Isolated building model and flap system
2
The tested specimen is an isolated portal-framed building with a rectangular plan, measuring 13 cm in width, 24 cm in length, and 4.2 cm in height to the eaves, with a peak height of 5.3 cm.
To generate a rapidly accelerating flow across a wide range of pitch angles, a flap system was designed and implemented. This system consists of a horizontal flap with dimensions of 139 cm in length, 47 cm in width, and 2.8 cm in thickness. The flap is actuated by a stepper motor, which is precisely controlled via an Arduino microcontroller.
1. Effect of approach-wind-flow directionality
This experiment investigated the influence of varying wind angles of attack on the pressure distribution over the building model under transient flow conditions and changing pitch angles. The building model was mounted at the center of a turntable, and was tested at seven wind angles: 0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 75°, and 90°. The model was equipped with 128 pressure taps distributed across its four facades and roof to capture detailed pressure data. A velocity probe was positioned at height H above the leading corner of the building to monitor flow characteristics. Both velocity and pressure measurements were recorded simultaneously during testing.
Instrumentation
The streamwise (u), lateral (v), and vertical (w) velocity components were measured using a FRAP Air probe (Fast Response Air Probe) from Vectoflow. It is a 5-hole probe with their pressure sensors integrated to the body of the probe. Measurements were taken at a sampling frequency of 800 Hz over a duration of 300 s. The probe head was positioned at a height of 2H above the windward corner of the building for all the wind directions considered, where H is the height of façade-1. The Vectoflow probe was positioned using an automated traverse system.
Surface pressure measurements were recorded simultaneously using two Scanivalve MPS4264 pressure scanners, each equipped with 64 transducers. Data was collected over a duration of 300 s at a sampling frequency of 800 Hz. The velocity and pressure measurements were made synchronized. The transducers were connected to the pressure taps on the building surfaces using 40 cm long urethane tubes with an internal diameter of 1.37 mm. To correct for any phase and amplitude distortions introduced by the pressure tubing system, tubing transfer functions are applied to the pressure time series. This correction has already been applied to the pressure time series in the dataset.
2. Effect of flap distance from the building model
This experiment examined how the distance between the transient wind load source (i.e., the flap system) and the building model influences the pressure distribution across the façade. Two configurations were tested:
• F1: Flap center positioned 1.5 meters from facade-1 of the building in the 0° orientation.
• F2: Flap center positioned 2.5 meters from facade-1 of the building in the 0° orientation.
Pressure and velocity measurements were simultaneously recorded.
Instrumentation
Same as experiment 1.
Dataset in Public Repository
DOI
10.4121/1403c011-ea89-4e6f-bff5-2b08c86c55dc
Publication Date
7 Jan 2026, 14:50
Project Metadata
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
CC BY 4.0
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