Wind Loads on a Medium-Rise Building by Using Five Major International Wind Codes and Standards

Wind load calculations are done for a medium-rise building with 48 m height locates in an urban area of Sri Lanka. Five different international wind loading standards were selected to calculate wind loads according to prevailing conditions in Sri Lanka. Available 3 second gust wind speed is converted in to mean hourly wind speed and 10 minutes average wind speed to use selected wind loading standards. The difference of wind load calculations is evaluated by using member forces in columns, beams, and shear walls obtained from a 3–D finite element modelling. The comparison displays that both the Australian standards yields higher wind loads compared to other selected standards. The use of higher terrain-height multiplier for cyclone prone zone 1 contributes much larger member forces compared to other cases. None of the standards exceeds the serviceability criteria, which evaluate by means of drift index.

ENGINEER, Vol. 47, No. 01, pp. 25-35, 2014