Comparison of wind load standards

Date

1995-12

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Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to compare major recognized national standards of wind loads and to determine the correlation among them. The four national standards compared are American Society of Civil Engineering Standard, ASCE 7-95 (ASCE 7-95), Australian standard, SAA Loading Code, Part 2: Wind Loads, AS 1170.2-1989 (SAA, 1989), British standard, Part 2, Code of Practice for Wind Loads, BS 6399, 1994 (BS 1994), and National Building Code of Canada, 1990 (NRCC 1990).

The objective was accomplished by calculating wind loads on two buildings: a low building with dimensions of 100 ft x 60 ft x 15 ft and a 160 ft high building with a plan dimensions of 200 ft x 100 ft. Limit state base shear and overturning moments for the two buildings were calculated and then compared. The study shows that the four national standards give similar limit state base shear for the two specific buildings selected for the study. It is also seen that the overturning moment depends largely on the roof uplift. The roof uplift force obtained from using the four national standards vary significantly which indicates that a thorough parametric study on roof uplift loads should be conducted to assess the real loads. The design pressures on components and claddings differ between the standards by as much as 200 percent. While accomplishing the objective it was observed that the comfurtability in using any standard depicts the format of the standard in some manner. The study shows that for that the format of the American and the Canadian standards are easy to follow, while the Australian and the British standard are more difficult to use to when determining the wind loads.

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