Abstract

This work shows results of the application of computational fluid dynamics on studying the aerodynamics of isolated curved roof buildings, without cladding walls. This type of structures are widely used in Argentine Republic in cities and and country areas, and they could be seen in very different uses, such as parking areas, sport facilities, educational buildings and so on. Current Argentinean wind loads code tells nothing about them and the same situation is found in other countries codes. Finite element program and a computer cluster were used to obtain numerical results, and a wind tunnel study undertaken at the Universidad Nacional del Nordeste boundary layer wind tunnel, to measure wind pressures on a model was used to validate computational results. A good agreement between computational and experimental results was achieved and original results for this type of structures was also obtained.