Dubai Municipality seminar to discuss wind engineering for tall buildings

The seminar, titled "Wind Engineering for Tall Buildings in the Gulf" comes as part of the civic body's initiative to offer a continuous learning environment for the local architects and consultant engineers.

It will be held on Tuesday at City Hall from 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m., and is organised in association with BMT Fluid Mechanics.

Commenting on the significance of this seminar, Khalid Mohammed Saleh, Director of Buildings Department at the municipality, said: "We are clearly living at the moment a very interesting period in the history of high-rise buildings - A period in which the Gulf region is playing a key role in setting new challenges and best industry practice in civil engineering."

He noted that designing taller, more slender and more flexible structures constantly pushes the boundaries of structural engineering - In this scenario wind engineering over the recent years moved away from being a mere 'checking' exercise and became an essential and vital tool for designers.

Furthermore the most recent advances in available building technology allowed wind engineering to comfortably operate within fast-track and deadline-driven environment, providing guidance & results meaningful to the entire design process.

"This seminar aims essentially at presenting a state of the art overview of the main issues and solution strategies in key areas of wind engineering for the analysis and design of tall buildings," he said.

He added that two prominent experts will address the audience at the seminar. In the first lecture, Mr. Stefano Cammelli of BMT Fluid Mechanics, will explain the nature of the wind loading mechanism and summarise the available methods to assess and determine the gust-excited response of tall buildings.

He will also discuss in particular the application of international codes of practice generally in use in the Gulf region. The respective scopes covered for the assessment of the wind loading are reviewed and discussed on the basis of real case studies.

In the second lecture, Dr. Adel Stitou will illustrate the advantages of wind tunnel testing as a 'tool' for structural & serviceability design optimization and will present case studies.

The role of architectural aerodynamics - involving form finding & shape tailoring - and the implications of structural parameters in the assessment of the wind loading will also be discussed.

Planning issues such as wind environment and pedestrian comfort, in particular, are presented from a wind engineering perspective. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of design wind speed to be considered in the UAE.