Wind tunnel measurements and comparisons with coding for a coke warehouse

Abstract eng:
Technical coding is aimed to simplify the calculation of loads on easy geometries. They have been very useful in the late years towards the homogenization of the design criteria in developed countries. However, codes are usually too conservative, that lead to oversized structures. In case of designing a non-conventional building (which are usually bigger and have a large budget), the oversizing of the structure could mean a dramatic increase in costs. Wind tunnel testing is a way to reduce this expense. Performing pressure measurements over a surface, not only the global structure can be optimized but also a deep knowledge on local load conditions can be obtained. In addition, small changes in the geometry are easy to implement in wind tunnel tests, but difficult to find in the codes. A projected coke warehouse has been selected as a building which could be designed via the two ways. This paper tries to compare the calculations of loads by the two means, i.e., wind tunnel tests and technical coding. The objective is to show that wind tunnel studies can be used to more precisely determine the wind loads, and therefore can save money, specially when big investments are required such as in big industrial buildings.

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