Abstract
This paper reports the wind tunnel experiments conducted to study the relation between the air flow and the shape of buildings, with the degree of corner cutting in focus. It aims at determining a proper cutting of the four vertical corner lines of building in order to diminish the strong wind region near the surface around them. Test objects, given several degrees and kinds of corner cutting, were put in the wind tunnel and the air flow was compared with that in the cases of rectangular models. Measurements were performed in the three dimensional way for the air flow around each model, explicating the distribution of wind velocity totally not limiting to the near surface region. The result is as follows : In the case when the building depth was equal to or smaller than the building width, the strong wind region near the surface diminished when the degree of corner cutting was less then 1/4 as shallow as the building width. In the case when the depth was larger than the width, a little greater diminishment of the strong wind region was accompanied by as shallow a cutting as less than 3/8 of the building width. The strong wind region increased when only the lower corners were cut off, and when only the upper corners were cut off, the region remained almost unchanged.
