Torsional moments on buildings subjected to wind loads

A numerical method is presented for the determination of wind-induced torsional moments on isolated or a group of rigid buildings of arbitrary cross-section. The method combines the boundary element method to account for the potential flow and the discrete vortex method to take care of the viscous flow characteristics of the wind and works iteratively in time. Thus the wind pressure distribution around the cross-section of a building is determined and the resulting torsional moment is easily computed. Numerical examples involving one or two buildings are treated by the proposed method and the results are compared against experimental ones. The method appears to be a valuable tool for the rapid determination of wind-induced torsion on buildings with satisfactory accuracy, especially because there is almost nothing on the subject in wind codes, while experiments are time consuming and expensive.