Transfer Function Modeling of Dynamic Wind Loads on Buildings

A technique based on time‐series modeling is used to determine modal forces arising from wind pressures recorded at various levels of a building model during a wind‐tunnel experiment. The complexities of the wind flow pattern around a building, coupled with limitations in the instrumentation, may make it difficult to monitor a sufficient number of pressure transducers to obtain such forces in only one wind‐tunnel experiment. Transfer function models are used to create a statistically consistent ensemble of wind pressures using partial records available from several separate wind‐tunnel experiments, in which the instrumentation is reconfigured in each experiment but conditions otherwise are unchanged. Statistics of wind forces acting on the building model in the alongwind, acrosswind, and torsional directions, and their correlations are considered. This technique, if used judiciously, can overcome some of the difficulties caused by limitations on the number of available instrumentation.