THE EFFECT OF SURROUNDINGS AND ROOF CORNER GEOMETRIC MODIFICATIONS ON ROOF PRESSURES ON LOW-RISE BUILDINGS

Very high vortex-induced roof suctions have been found to occur near corners of low-rise buildings. This paper investigates the sensitivity of these high suctions to the presence of surrounding buildings or to the use of relatively minor alterations to the roof corner geometry. Three typical surrounding conditions plus the isolated building case were examined for comparison, and seven configurations of roof geometric modifications were tested separately. The results show that the presence of the surrounding buildings generally reduces the suctions on the roof. All roof modifications used in this study significantly suppressed the high roof suctions near the windward corner and edges.