Parametric design of cladding system for tall buildings using computational fluid dynamics approach

Quasi-static approach in calculation of wind load simply depends on the integration of the fluctuating pressures measured at pressure tubes located at the surface of building models. This approach is suitable to design typical low to medium height buildings. However, for tall buildings, if cladding surface will be designed based on single critical load in a conservative way, it will result in over design and excessive cost phenomena. The main aim of this study is to develop new experimantal and computational procedures to examine surface pressure distribution on tall buildings and to select cladding structure based on different pressure zones, thus in a more efficient way. A tall building is selected, modelled and 1/144 scaled wooden prototype is manufactured. Experimental study is conducted in a wind tunnel at turbulent flow conditions, and pressure values are recorded from tubes assembled on the surface of the prototype. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach is carried out to determine pressure values and k - epsilon model is used in turbulent flow. Experimentally and computationally obtained results are observed compatible. After validation, actual wind profile is calculated, scaled and applied to the building model in simulations. Selection of the material thickness for the cladding system is performed parametrically accordint to deflection for elements in prescribed zones based on the computed pressure values. It is shown that new parametric cladding selection method opens up possibility to use less material consumption up to 23.6%, eliminating overdesign with maintaining desired factor of safety, which provides considerable economy on construction costs.