Wind tunnel testing of wind pressures on a large gymnasium roof

A wind tunnel test was conducted for a large steel gymnasium structure. Simultaneous pressure measurements were made on its entire ellipsoidal roof in a simulated suburban boundary layer flow field. Special attention is paid to the characteristics of fluctuating wind pressures in different zones on the roof. Some selected results are presented: 1) correlations between fluctuating wind pressures on both roof surfaces, 2) eigenvalues and eigenvectors of covariance matrices of the fluctuating wind pressures, 3) probability distributions of the fluctuating wind pressures, and 4) statistical characteristics of peak factor. Furthermore, the applicability of the quasi-steady approach is discussed in detail. Based on the results, an empirical formula for estimating the minimum pressure coefficients, using a peak factor approach, is presented. Comparison of the minimum pressure coefficients determined by the proposed formula and those obtained from the wind tunnel tests is made to examine the applicability and accuracy of the proposed formula.