Field studies of wind induced internal pressure in a warehouse with a dominant opening

A field study of wind-induced internal pressures in a flexible and porous industrial warehouse with a single dominant opening, of various sizes for a range of moderate wind speeds and directions, is reported in this paper. Comparatively weak resonance of internal pressure for oblique windward opening situations, and hardly discernible at other wind directions, is attributed to the inherent leakage and flexibility in the envelope of the building in addition to the moderate wind speeds encountered during the tests. The measured internal pressures agree well with the theoretical predictions obtained by numerically simulating the analytical model of internal pressure for a porous and flexible building with a dominant opening. Ratios of the RMS and peak internal to opening external pressures obtained in the study are presented in a non-dimensional format along with other published full scale measurements and compared with the non-dimensional design equation proposed in recent literature.