Evaluation of Wind Effects on Buildings Using Design Codes and Numerical Wind Tunnel Tests

Abstract The evaluation of wind effect on the regular shape and simple diaphragm buildings and structures due to wind load has been calculated by several international codes and standards where wind gust nature and dynamic effect could not capture. Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) provides the tools for engineers to calculate the wind pressures for the design of a regular-shaped structure with a height to width ratio of less than 5.0, a simple diaphragm, and no unusual geometrical irregularity. If these conditions do not satisfy a wind tunnel testing is required. In this study, a comparative study between two codes in Bangladesh (BNBC-2006 and BNBC-2020), and wind tunnel test results are conducted. An investigation is carried out on four typical buildings with variable heights located within Dhaka, Bangladesh. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program RWIND is used to calculate the wind loads on buildings and are compared with those obtained by Bangladesh National Building Codes. Storey shear of four different building models is compared. Between BNBC-2006 and BNBC-2020, there is up to a 53% difference in storey shear. Whereas, up to 30% variation in storey shear is observed between the numerical wind tunnel test data and the data calculated using the BNBC-2020 equations. Finally, this study will help in improving BNBC code provisions for wind load calculations.