STUDY ON THE ESTIMATION OF UNUNIFORM SNOW ACCUMULATIONS ON ROOFS BASED ON WIND TUNNEL TESTS USING ARTIFICIAL SNOW AND WIND PRESSURE COEFFICIENTS

Abstract

In estimating the snow loads on roofs of buildings and space structures in heavy snow regions, it is important to consider the ununiform snow depth distributions of an entire roof area. The objective of this study is to develop an useful and reliable method in the structural design in order to predict roof snow accumulations due to snowstorms. First, the efficiency of wind tunnel tests using artificial snow particles is discussed as compared with field measurements of roof snow surveyed in detail by aerial photogrammetry. The artificial snow particles enable more realistic experiments than model snow particles such as cracked wheat or activated clay, etc. Second, as the roof snow accumulation is closely related to the characteristics of wind flow around a building, this study focuses the relationship between the snow accumulation obtained from the above mentioned wind tunnel tests and the distribution of the fluctuating wind pressure coefficients on roofs. It is found that when the test conditions are suitable, the accurate estimation of snow accumulation patterns is possible using wind tunnel tests and/or the distribution of the fluctuating wind pressure coefficients on the roofs.