High intensity wind load evaluation and mitigation for buildings

保护加拿大的建筑环境免受极端风和其他自然灾害的影响，是拯救生命和维持社区繁荣的必要条件。虽然在风力工程方面取得了重大进展，但人们对接近地面的龙卷风和下击暴流的特征及其对建筑环境的影响还没有清楚地了解。目前的建筑物设计和测试方法，包括医院、消防站和紧急避难所等必须在紧急情况下保持运作的基本建筑物，没有考虑龙卷风和下击暴流。拟议的研究将开发新的多尺度实验和计算机模型，以再现和减轻龙卷风和下击暴流对重要建筑物的影响。这将首先通过使用数字和独特的最先进的风工程环境和能源（Winderoom）圆顶生成风荷载数据来解决，这是一个三维风测试室，可以配置为产生不同的气流类型，包括下击暴流和龙卷风。一旦风荷载数据生成，将制定旨在减少风致损害的缓解方法。利用风荷载对建筑物整体形状和拐角细节的依赖性，将使用数学模型来确定哪种局部墙壁和屋顶拐角修改将更好地减少这些风荷载。进一步的计算机方法，最终将使整体空气动力学建筑设计将被开发。这项研究将使空气动力学数据从测试各种类型的小规模建筑模型和数据库的近最佳性能的建筑形状和角落的细节提供给设计师。这将使工程师和建筑师能够设计出能够承受龙卷风和下击暴流的基本建筑。它还将导致开发新的风力减缓技术和建筑方法，以减少新的和现有的基本建筑物的灾难性风灾，从而保持加拿大在减灾方面的领导地位。

Protecting Canada's built environment against extreme wind and other natural disasters is necessary to save lives and sustain the prosperity of communities. Although significant progress has been made in wind engineering, the characteristics tornadoes and downbursts close to the ground, and their impacts on the built environment, are not clearly understood. The current design and testing methods for buildings, including essential buildings such as hospitals, fire stations and emergency shelters that must remain operational during an emergency, do not take tornadoes and downbursts into consideration. The proposed research will develop novel multi-scale experimental and computer models to reproduce and mitigate tornado and downburst effects on essential buildings. This will be addressed first by generating wind load data using a numerical and the unique state-of-the-art Wind Engineering Environment and Energy (WindEEE) dome, a three-dimensional wind testing chamber which can be configured to produce different flow types including downbursts and tornados. Once the wind load data is generated, mitigation methodologies that aim at reducing wind-induced damage will be developed. Taking advantage of the wind load dependency on a building's overall shape and corner details, mathematical models will be used to identify which kind of local wall and roof corner modifications will work better in reducing those wind loads. Further computer methods that will ultimately enable overall aerodynamic building designs will be developed. The research will make the aerodynamic data obtained from testing various types of small-scale building models and database of near optimally performing building shapes and corner details available for designers. This will allow engineers and architects to design essential buildings that can withstand tornado and downburst forces. It will also lead to the development of new wind mitigation technology and construction methods to reduce catastrophic wind-induced damage in new and existing essential buildings, thus maintaining Canada's leadership in disaster mitigation.