Aerodynamic mitigation of wind loads on a large-span cantilevered roof: A combined wind tunnel and CFD analysis

Large-span cantilevered roof represents a unique type of structure that is vulnerable to wind loads. Inspired by the need to maximumly reducing the rooftop wind loads, this study examined the feasibility of positioning vented slots on the leading edge, and the effectiveness of such aerodynamic mitigation measures are assessed via both physical and numerical simulations. The reliability of numerical simulation was evaluated via comparisons with the wind tunnel tests. The results indicated that, the variation of venting hole arrangement can cause significant change in the rooftop wind load characteristics. For the cases involved in this study, the maximum reduction of mean and peak wind suction coefficients are found to be 9% and 8% as compared to the original circular slot without venting holes. In addition, the effect of slot shape is also evident. It was shown that the triangular shaped slot tends to increase the wind suction near the leading edge, whereas the hexagonal and octagonal shaped slots are found to decrease the wind suction. In particular, with the installation of octagonal shaped slot, the maximum reduction of wind suction coefficients near the leading edge reaches up to 31% as compared to the circular shaped slot, while the maximum reduction of mean wind suction coefficients is about 30%.