Wind Effects on Buildings and Design of Wind-Sensitive Structures
September 18, 2006 — September 22, 2006
Coordinators:
- Charalampos C. Baniotopoulos (Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece)
- Ted Stathopoulos (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada)
The proposed Advanced Professional Training Course concerns with a very important area of modern engineering: the effects of wind on buildings and the methods used for the design of wind-sensitive structures. The course will address the fundamentals of wind engineering, particularly the interaction of wind and structure. Lectures will cover the wind climate, wind structure and turbulence, effects of exposure and climatology. Both experimental and computational approaches will be outlined. Field and wind tunnel measurements will be presented and analyzed. Special lectures will be dedicated to the design methodology for buildings and their cladding elements, as well as the design of wind-sensitive structures such as bridges, stadia, masts, wind turbines and the like. The course will also address design uncertainties and relevant codification issues, as well as the wind design provisions of the Eurocode with their rationale. Courses in this area are not generally available within the engineering curriculum of most universities around the world at present. However, the effects of wind are extremely important for contemporary structural design. Therefore, this course intends to cover the lack of relevant advanced professional training. The material of the course will consist of an introduction to wind engineering, the description of the wind and its characteristics, turbulence, exposure and climatology from the design perspective. The study of wind-building interaction will be presented in detail; wind tunnel and field measurement approaches and results will be also included. The course will briefly discuss the fundamentals of structural dynamics and will focus on the dynamic approach for the analysis of wind sensitive structures with plenty of applications and examples of actual contemporary structures. A series of lectures will be dedicated to the computational wind engineering approach, its procedure and limitations to its application. An introduction to codification with emphasis on Eurocode, both from the performance-based methodological viewpoint to the description of the actual design provisions will be presented. The course will be of interest for engineers, researchers and academicians who work on relevant scientific research or design topics in research centers, universities, industry and government agencies. The course is designed to address the interests of practicing engineers and professionals as well.