An aerodynamic database of wind loads on gable and hip roof buildings

Experimental wind tunnel databases are essential for determining design wind loads on buildings for a range of applications, including building code development and database-assisted design. Such databases have played a key role in developing data-driven methods and validating numerical simulations in recent years. Despite their importance, there are limited publicly available databases. This paper presents wind tunnel data obtained at Western University, which aims to address the gap for data on low-to mid-rise gable and hip-roof buildings. The database encompasses 154 different cases, examining the impacts of non-dimensional building geometry parameters and roof shape on the resulting aerodynamic loads. Notably, it includes 74 gable and 80 hip roof-shaped building cases, all with a roof slope 6/12 across open and suburban terrain categories. The paper examines the geometric aspect ratio limits as to when the gable or hip roof can be considered aerodynamically flat with respect to the total base shear. For gable-roofed buildings, the contribution of the mean and the variance of the base shear loads of the walls and roof collapse relatively well with respect to the mean roof height-to-length ( h / L ) ratio, where the length, L , is the plan dimension parallel to the wind direction. The contribution of the roof reduces to less than 3 % when h / L > 2 . For uplift, the contribution of the windward roof and leeward roof to the total uplift was examined. For h / L < 2 , the leeward roof contributes more to the total uplift. As for the hip roof, the contributions of the walls and roof collapse are observed to be a function of the height-to-breadth ( h / B ) ratio, where the breadth, B , is the plan dimension perpendicular to the wind direction. The contribution of the hip roof to the total base shear is less than 1 % when h / B > 1.25 for the L / B ratios considered in the database. The controlling geometric aspect ratios are different for a gable and hip roof due to how these parameters alter the projected roof area that contributes to the total base shear. Generally, when the hip or gable roof contributes to the total base shear, the peak design base shear is smaller than a case with a flat roof.