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As global urbanization accelerates, the construction of tall buildings has surged, becoming a defining feature of modern cityscapes. Tall buildings, while contributing to economic growth and urban development, face substantial risks from extreme wind events, such as hurricanes and downbursts. This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of tall building facades under severe wind conditions, with a focus on recent events that impacted the Gulf Coast of the United States, specifically in Houston, during May to July 2024, including a powerful derecho and Hurricane Beryl. Through extensive damage assessments of various tall buildings, this research highlights the different damages observed from these wind events, revealing critical vulnerabilities in tall building façades, particularly in relation to wind channeling effects in densely built urban areas. The observed damage patterns, including extensive glass breakage and façade failures, underscore the need for a reassessment of wind effects on tall buildings to better reflect the complex interactions between wind forces and urban environments. Additionally, by integrating real-world damage observations with wind tunnel simulations carried out at the NSF NHERI Wall of Wind Experimental Facility, this research offers valuable insights into the factors that may have influenced the observed damage. In this wind tunnel testing campaign, a series of aerodynamic testing of a tall building model under both atmospheric boundary layer and downburst winds were conducted. Additionally, interference effects are tested for both types of events. The preliminary findings have shown that downburst winds can have higher negative pressures compared to atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) which needs to be further studied including several downburst events to characterize the difference between both types of winds. Also, the results indicated the need to conduct a detailed interference study to compare ABL and downburst to properly include these effects for dense urban areas. 

This dataset includes files from an extensive wind tunnel study of stepped-roof buildings conducted at the Wall of Wind facility at Florida International University. The aim of the study was to clarify the key factors that affect aerodynamic forces on complex architectural shapes. While ASCE7-22 offers a guideline for wind loads on building components and roofs, it falls short of providing the detailed data needed by engineers to calculate wind loads on the surfaces of stepped-roof buildings. This study fills that gap. The main subject under investigation was the impact of wind loads on different building geometries such as stepped roofs, U-shaped buildings, podium structures, and low-rise buildings with carport extensions. This involved a detailed examination of how various structural features influenced wind pressure distribution, with a specific emphasis on understanding the behavior of wind forces on these models. The outcomes include a series of detailed findings on wind pressure coefficients for each building model. These results offer insights into the wind load characteristics for different architectural forms, contributing to a better understanding of structural behavior under wind forces. The study findings will furnish additional data to enable engineers and scholars to more accurately assess and comprehend wind loads on buildings with multi-level roofs. The dataset includes diagrams of each model’s geometry and wind pressure data. The data highlighted key areas where wind pressures were most significant and how different building features either mitigated or exacerbated these pressures. The data gathered from this study can be reused in multiple ways. It can serve as a reference for designing wind-resilient buildings, particularly in regions susceptible to strong winds or hurricanes. The empirical data can also aid in validating and refining computational models for predicting wind loads on buildings. Additionally, it can be used in academic research for further exploration into wind engineering, urban planning, and architectural design, potentially leading to innovations in building safety standards and construction practices. 

Eighteen years after Hurricane Charley made landfall in 2004, Hurricane Ian made landfall in nearly the same location, also as a Category 4 hurricane. Unlike Hurricane Charley (2004), water more so than wind was the impetus behind the disaster that unfolded. Despite being a below-design-level wind event, the large windfield drove a powerful storm surge as much as 13 ft high (relative to the NAVD8 vertical datum) in the barrier islands of Sanibel, Ft. Myers Beach, and Bonita Beach. Flooding was extensive along not only the Florida coast, but also well inland into low-lying areas as far north as Duval County and the storm’s second landfall site in South Carolina. As such, Hurricane Ian will likely be one of the costliest landfalling hurricanes of all time in the US, claiming over 100 lives. The impacts from Hurricane Ian were most severe in the barrier islands from the combination of storm surge and high winds, with many buildings completely washed away, and others left to deal with significant scour and eroded foundations. Several mobile/manufactured home parks on the barrier islands fared particularly poorly, offering little to no protection to anyone unfortunate enough to shelter in them. The damage was not restricted to buildings, as the causeways out to the barrier islands were washed away in multiple locations. In contrast, wind damage from Hurricane Ian appears less severe overall relative to other Category 4 storms, perhaps due to a combination of actual wind intensity being less than Category 4 at the surface at landfall, and the improvements in building construction that have occurred since Hurricane Charley struck 18 years earlier. It is notable that extensive losses were in part driven by decades-long construction boom of residential structures in Ft. Myers and Cape Coral since the 1950s and 1960s, expanding communities and neighborhoods encroaching upon vulnerable coastlines. Beyond serving as an important event to validate current and evolving standards for coastal construction, Hurricane Ian provides a clarion call to reconsider the ramifications of Florida's coastal development under changing climate. This project encompasses the products of StEER's response to this event: Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (PVRR), Early Access Reconnaissance Report (EARR) and Curated Dataset. 

The complex dynamics of vertically separated flows pose a significant challenge when it comes to assessing the wind loads on multi-level structures, demanding a nuanced understanding of the intricate interplay between atmospheric conditions and architectural designs. Previous studies and wind loading standards provide insufficient guidance for designing wind pressures on multi-level buildings. The behavior of wind around perpendicularly attached surfaces is not quite similar to that of individual flat roofs or walls. When a body is composed of several surfaces with right or oblique angles, the separated flow from surfaces and their interactions will cause complex flow patterns around each surface. A wind tunnel experimental study was carried out on bluff bodies with attached flat plates and other adjacent bluff bodies with different heights to examine the wind-induced pressures on such complex shapes. Mean and peak pressure coefficients were measured to determine the flow interaction patterns and location of localized peak pressures. The results were compared to the Tokyo Polytechnic University Aerodynamic Database of isolated low-rise buildings without eaves. The research findings indicated that there was a noteworthy disparity between the minimum and maximum values and locations of peak pressures on both the wall and roof surfaces of the models used in this study, as compared to the results obtained by the Tokyo Polytechnic University. Moreover, the study conceivably pointed to the difference between the peak negative and positive pressure coefficient locations with the ASCE 7-22 wind loading zones. The peak suction zones were affected by the combined flows at perpendicular faces, and as a result, different wind load zones were obtained dissimilar to those introduced by ASCE 7-22. Wind loading standards may need to be modified to account for the wind pressures on complex building structures with an emphasis on the location of the peak negative pressure zones. 

In the study, a series of wind tunnel tests were conducted to investigate wind effects acting on dome structures (1/60 scale) induced by straight-line winds at a Reynolds number in the order of 106. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed as well, including a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) simulation, and their performances were validated by a comparison with the wind tunnel testing data. It is concluded that wind loads generally increase with upstream wind velocities, and they are reduced over suburban terrain due to ground friction. The maximum positive pressure normally occurs near the base of the dome on the windward side caused by the stagnation area and divergence of streamlines. The minimum suction pressure occurs at the apex of the dome because of the blockage of the dome and convergence of streamlines. Suction force is the most significant among all wind loads, and special attention should be paid to the roof design for proper wind resistance. Numerical simulations also indicate that LES results match better with the wind tunnel testing in terms of the distribution pattern of the mean pressure coefficient on the dome surface and total suction force. The mean and root-mean-square errors of the meridian pressure coefficient associated with the LES are about 60% less than those associated with RANS results, and the error of suction force is about 40–70% less. Moreover, the LES is more accurate in predicting the location of boundary layer separation and reproducing the complex flow field behind the dome, and is superior in simulating vortex structures around the dome to further understand the unsteadiness and dynamics in the flow field.