Static loads to simulate dynamic effects of wind on hyperbolic paraboloid roofs with square plan

The main international standards do not report any specific information (e.g. pressure coefficients) for wind-induced loads on tensile suspended roofs with hyperbolic paraboloid shape, that require therefore ad hoc wind tunnel tests or CFD analyses even in the preliminary design stage. This motivated a wide and parametric investigation aimed to explore the general trend of their aerodynamic behaviour, and experimental tests on in-scale models were performed in the CRIACIV boundary layer wind tunnel (see Rizzo, 2009; Rizzo et al., 2011, 2012), to measure pressure fields for several angles of attack of the incoming wind on different models of hyperbolic paraboloid roofs. On the base of experimental results and of finite element analyses for the sample case of square footprint, this paper explores the possibility of defining equivalent static pressure fields able to reproduce the envelope of dynamic displacements of the cables net. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.