Wind environmental conditions around tall buildings with chamfered corners

Abstract An experimental investigation of ground-level wind conditions around buildings with chamfered corners has been carried out in the boundary-layer wind tunnel of the Building Aerodynamics Laboratory of the Centre for Building Studies. Experiments included models of both square and chamfered buildings of various heights ranging between 60 and 180 m exposed to a simulated open country terrain. Chamfered buildings were represented by six models with faces of different length always chamfered at a 45° angle. The effect of roof chamfer was also examined. Results indicate that chamfering a corner of a tall square building at 45° to its original faces may significantly reduce the size of strong wind area in the corner stream. This reduction is more pronounced for taller buildings and occurs for normal and oblique wind directions as well. Gandemer's comfort parameters, Ψ, including some effect of turbulence give results consistent with mean velocity ratios around buildings with chamfered corners.