The measurement of wind pressures on two-storey houses at Aylesbury

https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-6105(75)90007-0Get rights and content

Abstract

An account is given of the measurement of wind pressures on a two-storey housing estate on the outskirts of Aylesbury, 65 km north-west of London. The estate immediately adjoins an open country fetch extending uninterruptedly for about 15 km to the southwest. The site and installation are described, including the variable geometry building erected on open ground adjoining the estate.

Wind pressures were recorded at a total of 44 positions on seven houses in the estate, and at 72 positions on the experimental building, transducers being mounted on both walls and roofs. Load cells were also installed in the experimental building to record separately total overall loads and total roof loads. Measurements of velocity were made using cup anemometers mounted at 3 m, 5 m, and 10 m, on a fixed mast, suitably sited in the vicinity of the experimental building. In addition, anemometers mounted on a 20 m portable mast were used to investigate the upstream velocity profiles, and also the flow patterns within the urban area.

The experimental building housed all the recording equipment which comprised multichannel FM magnetic tape recorders. Records were taken in analogue form and were subsequently digitised in order to calculate mean, rms and extreme values, probability distributions, autocorrelations, power spectra and cross-correlations. Measurements have been made for a variety of wind speeds and directions, and also for several roof pitches on the experimental building between 5° and 45°. Preliminary results are presented and discussed.

References (10)

  • C.W. Newberry et al.

    The nature of gust loading on tall buildings

  • C.W. Newberry et al.

    Wind loading of a tall building in an urban environment

  • C.W. Newberry et al.

    Wind loading on tall buildings — further results from Royex House

    Ind. Aerodynamics Abstr.

    (1973)
  • C.W. Newberry et al.

    Wind pressures on the Post Office Tower, London

  • C.W. Newberry et al.

    Wind pressure and strain measurements at the Post Office Tower

    BRE Current Paper CP 30/73

    (November 1973)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (28)

  • Wind-uplift capacity of cold-formed steel weatherboard claddings—Experimental​ and numerical investigations

    2023, Thin-Walled Structures
    Citation Excerpt :

    Weatherboard is one of the most popular wall cladding profiles world-wide, which is being increasingly used in New Zealand and other Pacific countries. Applications of weatherboard panels include: facades, soffits, fascia’s, chimney claddings and interior feature walls (Fig. 1) [1–3]. Weatherboard is a wide tray cladding, roll formed in single length trays and fixed to purlins with the help of weatherboard clips and tek screws at the intersection of two adjacent cladding sheets.

  • Wind-uplift capacity of cold-formed steel interlocking claddings-Experimental and numerical investigations

    2023, Journal of Building Engineering
    Citation Excerpt :

    Interlocking is a wide tray cladding, roll formed in single length trays and fixed to purlins with the help of tek screws at the intersection of two adjacent panels (Fig. 1). Screw-fixed interlocking steel claddings suffer from either local failure of the screws or from global failure of the cladding assembly due to the shear failure of two interlocking panels, when subjected to wind uplift/suction pressures during high wind events such as storms, hurricanes, cyclones and other wind events [1–4]. Therefore, wind-uplift/suction capacity of the CFS interlocking claddings is governed by the localized failures at the interlocking connections.

  • Comparative study of full-scale and model-scale wind pressure measurements on a gable roof low-rise building

    2021, Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics
    Citation Excerpt :

    Based on field measurements from full-scale buildings, a number of comparative studies of full-scale and model-scale measurements were performed. In the early 1970s, the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in the United Kingdom initiated a program of field measurements on a specially constructed two-stories housing at Aylesbury, England (Eaton and Mayne, 1975). Being probably the first major field measurements of wind pressures on low-rise building, the results of Aylesbury experiment were particularly useful.

View all citing articles on Scopus

Paper presented at the Symposium on Full-Scale Measurements of Wind Effects on Tall Buildings and Other Structures, University of Western Ontario, 23–29 June 1974.

View full text