Peter Irwin to Lecture at Virginia Tech!

Synopsis

There are powerful economic, social and demographic factors at work that are currently resulting in the biggest boom in tall buildings that the world has ever seen. Wind often governs their design, especially in hurricane prone regions, but it also becomes increasingly important with height in other regions. The Burj Dubai tower, at over 700 m height, is an example of this drive for height and will be used in the presentation to illustrate the modern methods of wind engineering used on these structures. This will include current wind tunnel and analytical methods, criteria, and probable future developments. The Burj Dubai tower is an example where the building's aerodynamic shape has been developed to deliberately reduce wind loading, improve the response to wind action and reduce the impact of winds on pedestrians at ground level or on terraces. An interesting development is that as buildings become higher and higher it is becoming clear that we need to know more about how the wind velocity and turbulence vary with height in different types of weather systems. The various types of storm such as extra-tropical cyclones, hurricanes, thunderstorms and Shamals can produce a variety of wind profiles that do not necessarily conform to the idealized profiles traditionally used in wind engineering . As buildings approach the 1 km height we will need to develop improved methods of accounting for variations in wind profiles. The presentation will also discuss the use of damping systems to reduce the response of buildings to wind.

Details

Date: October 17

This event is available only to faculty and students.