Wind Tunnel Tests on Wind Pressure Characteristics of Sawtooth Roofs

Abstract

Wind tunnel tests were conducted to investigate the wind pressure characteristics of sawtooth roofs in a simulated open country wind field with relatively low turbulence intensity. Models of monosloped and sawtooth roof (two to four spans) buildings that were 1∶2 scale were constructed with intense pressure taps installed on the 15° sloped roofs. Both local and area-average pressure coefficients were determined under different wind directions. Preliminary results indicated that the local peak negative pressure coefficients were slightly lower than the literature results. The increase of roof slope led to higher peak design pressure coefficients for sawtooth roofs, especially in the interior and edge regions of roofs. The peak values of negative pressure captured in high corner regions of monosloped roofs were similar to the corresponding data measured on the windward span of sawtooth roofs, which indicated that the American standard provisions for wind pressure design of monosloped roof structures and the Chinese local wind pressure provisions for sawtooth roofs may underestimate the critical wind suction on high corner regions of monosloped roofs. Generally, the area-average pressures heavily depend on the size of tributary area and the region concerned, and higher roof slope led to faster reduction.