Assessing the Significance of a Wind-Load Application Methodology for Embodied Carbon in a European High-Rise Building

The sustainable design of high-rise buildings is linked to the quantity of structural material. This study hypothesises that improved understanding of results from various wind load determination methods enables the safe adoption of lower wind loads, thereby facilitating more sustainable design. For an 80-m-high reinforced concrete building in Warsaw, wind loads were assessed using both PN-EN 1991-1-4:2008 Eurocode 1 (EC) analysis and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation, with wind tunnel tests excluded. Structural analysis and optimisation of core wall thickness followed. EC-based analyses overestimate loads from forces perpendicular to the façade, underestimate loads from oblique forces and fail to compute the Fx and Fy force components accurately. Involving wind engineering professionals to classify terrain, perform climate analyses, and implement CFD simulations can enhance EC-based analysis and verification. Employing these methods reduced safety margins, permitting a decrease in core wall thickness from 35 to 30 cm. This modification resulted in a 14% reduction in concrete use and an estimated 35 tonnes of CO2-eq savings, thereby improving the design’s sustainability.