Wind-induced sound on buildings and structures

Wind flow around buildings and structures has led to annoying noise levels at several occasions, especially in cases where tonal sound was produced. The human hearing is equipped to distinguish tonal or pulsating sound from random noise patterns, causing tonal or pulsating sound to be perceived as more annoying. Tonality is often caused by the phenomenon that the wind flow forms regular wave or turbulence patterns between, in or behind parts of the building or structure. Steel grids mounted to the facade or roof of buildings often appear to produce a sharp whistling noise. In the master thesis reported in this paper, wind tunnel research was carried out to gain better insight in this ‘whistling grids’ problem.