Experimental study of the neighborhood effects on the mean wind loading over two equivalent high-rise buildings

Abstract

This paper presents a series of results with respect to the mean values of shear, base moment and torsion acting in a building obtained through an experimental wind tunnel study using the standard building proposed by the Commonwealth Advisory Aeronautical Research Council (CAARC) as building reference. In the loading determination, the interference of a neighboring building with similar geometric characteristics to the CAARC was simulated, considering variations of positioning and spacing in relation to the reference building. It was concluded that the presence of the neighboring building increased the mean loads in the reference building for a significant number of directions considered. In the case of the considered deviations and the proposed provisions by this study, it was concluded that the vicinity factor that would contemplate the majority of the results obtained in the tests should increase the wind loads by at least 60% in relation to the values obtained for the building reference considered in isolation.