Wind load evaluation system for the design of roof cladding of spherical domes

This paper describes a computer-assisted wind load evaluation system for the design of roof cladding of spherical domes, using an aerodynamic database, an artificial neural network (ANN) and a time-series simulation technique. First, a series of wind tunnel experiments is carried out in two kinds of turbulent boundary layers. The statistics of wind pressures, e.g. mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis, are computed and stored in the database, together with the coordinates of the measuring points. The power spectrum of pressure fluctuations is approximated by an exponential function of the reduced frequency. The values of the parameters included in the function are stored in the database. Next, an ANN is constructed, which predicts the statistical values of pressure coefficients at an arbitrary point from the information on the dome's geometry and the turbulence intensity of approach flow. Finally, a time series of wind pressure is numerically simulated based on an FFT approach, in which the non-normality of pressure fluctuations is considered. The proposed wind load evaluation system can be applied to a risk-consistent design as well as to a fatigue design of the roof cladding and its fixings.