Wind loads on double facade systems with gaps greater than 15 cm

The EUROCODE ENV 1991–2-4,Wind Loads consists of a method for calculating the resulting windloads on the two skins of external walls with more than one skin. For double facade systems, which are charcterized by a large distance between the two skins in a range of ≈0,4m up to 1,4m, the application of these method leads to a reduction of the resulting loads on the external skin, which underestimate the real loads significantly. For that reason model tests on three different buildings with double facades have been performed, and the dynamic loads on the external and internal skins were measured parallel. The results are presented in this paper and recommendations will be given for an improvement of the present code.