Response of Hemispherical, Air‐Supported Structures to Wind

Abstract

This paper examines the response of hemispherical, air‐supported structures to turbulent wind, both theoretically and experimentally. Wind‐tunnel tests were conducted on an aeroelastic model of a hemispherical, air‐supported structure to investigate the wind‐induced response and the internal pressure fluctuations for different gradient wind speeds, exposures, enclosure volumes, and mean internal pressures. Also, a semi‐analytical approach, which depends on external pressure measurements and static deflections, is established for predicting the wind‐induced response of air‐supported structures. To verify this methodology, a rigid hemispherical model was wind‐tunnel tested to measure the external pressures, and static deflections were calculated using the finite element method. The response predicted using the semi‐analytical approach agrees well with the experimental data. The experiments resulted in a number of observations: The mean membrane deflections in strong wind are very large, compared with conventional structures, and mostly outward except on the windward side. The dynamic response is broad band in character, does not feature any resonance amplification, and is much smaller than the mean response. The roof response is very sensitive to the variations in the mean internal pressure. A marked increase of the response occurs when the internal pressure is reduced.