Experimental investigation of wind load on tall buildings with square cross-section having rounded facet

Abstract

An experimental investigation of the static pressure distribution on the. square cylinders with rounded facet is conducted. The study includes both the single cylinder and the group consisting of two cylinders. The test is conducted in open circuit wind tunnel at a Reynolds number 5.4 x 104 based on the face length across the flow with uniforrh flow of velocity 13.6 m/s. The study is conducted, initially on a single cylinder with various facet widths at zero angle of attack. The five different dimensionless facet widths are considered in the study with a view to observing the effect of the facet widths on the static pressure distribution. Then a group of cylinders is taken into consideration for the study. Each group consists of two cylinders; one in front of the other is kept along the flow direction. The static pressure distribution is monitored on each cylinder in the group varying the inter spacing between the front and the rear cylinder. The drag coefficient is determined from the static pressure distributions by the numerical integration method. It is observed from the results that the drag coefficient depends on the facet widths significantly. With the facet widths on the cylinder, the drag reduces remarkably compared to that on the sharp edged cylinders. However, with further increase of facet widths, drag does not change significantly.