Analysis of wind load on buildings of various heights using ETABS

The population today faces an acute shortage of land and space. To get rid of this problem, people have resorted to multi-storeyed buildings both for commercial use and for residential purposes. As the height of the buildings increase, wind flows to become an important consideration for the designers. For static structures, wind interacts only with the external portion of the structure, but in the case of dynamic structures, the wind influences the motion of the building as well.

However, the effect of the wind flow on a building depends on a number of factors like the height of the building, it’s location, number of storeys, etc.

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1. GIS

2. Structural & Foundation Analysis

3. CPM & BIM

4. Tall Building Design

5. Construction Technology (Career Building Course)

6. Foundation Design

7. Construction Project Management

8. Building Information Modelling

9. Seismic Design

10. Quantity Surveying

11. ETABS Software

12. Project Management with Primavera

With the advent of modern technology, the structures build nowadays are considerably low in damping and light in weight. As a side effect of this, these structures are more prone to the effect of wind flow that causes various effects on the structures. Therefore, the designs should be made keeping in view the wind loads that may act on the building and the structure should be capable enough of standing the probable load.

In this project, the analysis of the effect of wind loads on buildings of different heights using the ETABS software. The analysis is done using the Equivalent Static Method.

Keywords:

• ETABS
• Aspect Ratio
• Wind load
• Tall Buildings

There are two components that determine the effect of wind load on tall structures. These are:

1. Along with wind effect – loads caused by the drag components of the wind load
2. Across wind effect – loads caused by the lift components of the wind load

Project Implementation:

1. A building of at least 10 storeys has to consider. The number of storeys is kept 10 or more because the effect of wind is more on such buildings.
2. The probable wind load has to considered on the building.
3. The nature of the wind flow has to be specified. This is complex because a variety of flow situations arise due to the interaction of the structures with the wind flows. The wind speed is zero at the ground level and maximum at the critical height.
4. The specifications of the building have to be decided. These specifications include the height, breadth, length of the building and the number of storeys in the building. Also, you will have to decide the wind zone, terrain and the topography of the location. It is these specifications that you have to vary for analysis of various structures.
5. Once you are done with the specifications, design a model of the structure on the ETABS software.
6. Now, the wind loads have to be applied both across and along with the structure.
7. Wind speeds and pressure have to be calculated for various considerations you made above.
8. The analysis of the effect of wind on various structures has to be done now.

Conclusion:

This will show how much wind load a building of a said specification can stand. And therefore, this gives an important point of consideration in designing a building that will be subjected to heavy wind loads, especially in areas where the effect of wind load is more prominent than the effect of an earthquake.

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• ETABS
• Civil Engineering

Analysis of wind load on buildings of various heights using ETABS