Equivalent Static Wind Loads on Single-Layer Cylindrical Steel Shells

Abstract

Wind tunnel tests were carried out in an open terrain to measure the wind pressure on six cylindrical roofs with the rise-span ratios of 1/4, 1/6, and 1/8 and length-span ratios of 1 and 2. Using the measured wind pressures on the roof, a parametric study using numerical simulation with finite-element (FE) models was conducted to investigate the effects of the structural span, rise-span ratio, length-span ratio, roof distributed mass, and mean wind velocity on the wind-induced response and equivalent static wind loads (ESWLs) of 432 single-layer cylindrical steel shells with supports along four edges. The results demonstrated that the wind directions of and 45° were unfavorable in the view of the wind-induced response; the first several vibration modes made the most important contribution to the wind-induced response; and the background response was larger than the resonant response for most cases. In the balance of precision and simplicity of the parametric analysis for convenient application, the universal ESWLs realizing the equivalence of multiple peak response were expressed by two dominating vibration modes simplified as sine functions. With this method and parametric analysis, the pressure coefficients of the ESWLs were proposed as a function of reduced frequency for engineering applications.