Building Wind Loads based on Wind Loading Chain: Comparative Study of

Eastern Asia Standards

Yaojun Ge1, Shuyang Cao1 and Xinyang Jin2
1
State Key Laboratory of Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, 200092, China.
[email protected]
2
China Academy of Building Research Beijing, 100013, China.

Abstract
This paper overviews building wind loading standards in the Eastern Asia Region, including China,
Japan and Korea. A general description of wind loading model is given as a commonly known wind
load chain described by four variables including velocity pressure, exposure factor, pressure
coefficient, and gust response factor. Through the extensive calculations for low, median and high rise
buildings, these four important variables of wind loads are evaluated and compared with mean values
and coefficients of variation. The main results of the comparison show small differences among three
countries, and the reasons are discussed.

1 Introduction
After John Smeaton of England originated a formula for wind pressure loads in 1759, wind actions on
structures and structural elements have to be considered in the design as one partial load among
various design loads. In order to determine wind actions on structures, each country needs to have
appropriate codification to specify wind loading and to determine wind induced responses in structural
design, which results in numerous wind loading codes and standards in the world, for example, the
ASCE Code, the Australian and New Zealand Standard, the National Building Code of Canada, the
Japan Recommendations, the European Standard, the International Organization for Standardization,
and so on. Under the globalization of construction industry and the development of unified
international codes and standards, it is necessary to better understand and compare the underlying
differences among international or regional wind loading standards in order to further incorporate for
future alignments of wind loading and even wind resistance design codes and standards. The previous
studies on the major international standards mentioned above have found that the dominant
contributions to the scatter in wind loading were the varying definitions of wind field characteristics,
including mean wind speed profile and some turbulence wind parameters (Zhou et al, 2002 & Tamura
et al, 2005). Some other published papers and reports for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) countries and areas have shown the significant importance on extreme wind speeds of tropical
cyclones and the other extremes of benign monsoons and local thunderstorm downdrafts for design
(Holmes et al, 1997 & Holmes et al, 2002).
With the support of the Centre of Excellence (COE) and the Global COE in Wind Engineering at
Tokyo Polytechnic University in Japan, a new practical outcome of comparative study on wind
loading codes and standards among a regional area composed of a group of bordering countries or
areas have been launched through five Workshops on Regional Harmonization of Wind Loading and
Wind Environmental Specifications in the Asia-Pacific Economies (APEC-WW) since 2004. At the
2nd APEC-WW in Hong Kong in 2005, three particular examples were purposely assigned for each
1
6th European and African Conference on Wind Engineering 2

country or area representing three typical building models, including a low-rise building, a medium-
rise building and a high-rise building. In the subsequent two Workshops, the design wind loads on
three building examples have been evaluated and compared in accordance with the wind loading codes
and standards of 15 Asia-Pacific Economies (Gairola & Mittal, 2006). The basic results of three
examples and the obvious reasons for differences were summarized by J. Holmes, Y. Tamura and P.
Krishna (Holmes et al, 2008). A series of papers related to benchmark analysis of these three typical
buildings were published and presented in the 7th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Wind
Engineering, and the further discussion were made on regional wind velocity map, unified terrain
categories and model code for low-rise buildings in the 5th APEC-WW Workshop at Chinese Taipei
in 2009 (Holmes et al, 2009 & Holmes, 2009).
With the background of the APEC-WW Workshops and the China-Japan-Korea Workshops on Wind
Engineering, this paper is going to make quantitative and statistical comparison and contrast of
building wind loading components based on three eastern Asia countries’ standards, including the
China National Standard (GB 50009-2012), the Recommendations for Loads on Buildings of Japan
(AIJ-RLB-2004) and the Korean Building Code (KGG-KBCS-05).
A general description of wind loading model can be given by a wind loading chain, proposed by A.G.
Davenport (Davenport, 2004), and consisted of four components
(1)

in which q is a reference velocity pressure mainly depending on wind speed, Ce is an exposure factor
to adjust for the terrain conditions and the height, Cp is a pressure coefficient related to structural
shape, and Cg is a gust response factor (GRF) due to turbulent wind actions (gust loading factor GLF)
or structural dynamic response (dynamic response factor DRF).

2 Reference Velocity Pressure

Reference velocity pressure q can be simply described by the square of reference wind speed U which
basically depends upon three conditions, including reference height, averaging time and return period.
Table 1 shows that the unified reference height of 10 m and the same averaging time of 10 minutes are
used in all three countries’ standards. But the return period for the design wind speed is 50 years in
China and 100 years in Japan and Korea, respectively. With the assumption of Gumbel Distribution of
wind speed, the ratio of wind speed values is 0.95 : 1.00 for the return periods of 50-year : 100-year.
The reference velocity pressure ratio q is defined for representing relative reference velocity pressure
as
(2)
̅

in which 0 is the reference air density, and U0 is a reference wind speed defined in the conditions of
the reference height of 10m, the averaging time of 10 minutes and the return period of 100 years,
adopted in two countries’ codes. The reference velocity pressure ratios q for three economies’
standards are computed and analyzed with the mean value of 0.96 and 4.3% CoV shown in Table 1,
and the main difference comes from return period, which is 50 years in Chinese standard and 100
years in Japanese and Korean standards, respectively.
6th European and African Conference on Wind Engineering 3

Table 1: Characteristics of reference wind speed and velocity pressure

Pressure
Country
 Reference Averaging time Return period ratio
3
(kg/m ) Height (m) Time Ratio Years Ratio q
China 1.25 10 10min 1.0 50 0.95 0.903
Japan 1.22 10 10min 1.0 100 1.00 0.976
Korea 1.25 10 10min 1.0 100 1.00 1.000
Mean value 1.240 10 10min 1.0 83.3 0.983 0.960
Coefficient of variation 0.011 0 0 0 0.28 0.024 0.043

3 Exposure Factor
Although there are mainly two patterns of wind profile, including Power Law and Logarithmic Law,
the Power Law is used in all three countries’ standards. The maximum and the minimum values of
exponent  and the corresponding gradient height  are collected in Table 2. In order to compare
exposure factors, the basic values of  and , under normal terrain condition, are also provided for
transferring wind pressure from the basic terrain roughness. This normalization can be done only
through the condition that wind speed always keeps in the same value at the gradient height. The
exposure factor ratio e, therefore, can be defined as

( ) ( )
(3)

in which b and b are the exponent of Power Law and the gradient height (m) related to the basic
terrain roughness, s and s are the corresponding values for the specific terrain roughness, and z0 is
the reference height assumed to be 10m. The exposure factor ratios e are computed and analyzed in
Table 2, and the mean values and the coefficients of variation of the exposure factor ratios were
calculated to be equal to 1.46 and 4.2% in the minimum terrain category and 0.228 and 29.5% in the
maximum terrain category, respectively. The CoV of exposure factor ratio in the maximum terrain
category is much larger than that in the minimum terrain category. The main reason can be attributed
to the fact that the exponents max and max are much more scattered than the exponents min and min
shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Characteristics of terrain categories and exposure factor
Minimum Basic Maximum e
Country Law N
min min b b max max Min Max
China Power 4 0.12 300 0.16 350 0.30 450 1.38 0.318
Japan Power 5 0.10 250 0.15 350 0.35 650 1.53 0.156
Korea Power 4 0.10 250 0.15 300 0.33 500 1.46 0.210
Mean value 0.107 267 0.153 333 0.327 533 1.46 0.228
Coefficient of variation 0.088 0.088 0.031 0.071 0.063 0.159 0.042 0.295

4 Pressure Coefficient
The comparison of pressure coefficients related to structural shape were made among three countries’
standards through two typical models, including a low-rise building in Fig. 1 and a medium-rise
building in Fig. 2. The main calculations for the low-rise building include the net pressure coefficients
6th European and African Conference on Wind Engineering 4

at A, B, C and D of gable walls or roof of the frames at the end of the building and the maximum and
minimum wind pressures on the 3m4m roller door on SW wall and the 1m1m window on NE wall
(Gairola & Mittal, 2006 & Holmes et al, 2008).

Figure 1: Low-rise building

The medium-rise building is assumed to be air-conditioned with non-opening windows, and can be
considered effectively sealed with regard to internal pressures. Design wind speeds at the top of the
building, 48m, are assumed to be equal to 56m/s, 36m/s and 33m/s for the averaging times of 3-
seconds, 10-minutes and 1 hour, respectively, and a turbulence intensity of 0.20 at the top is assumed.
Table 3 compares the cladding pressures on window elements near the corners at the top level.
Although the pressure coefficients are scattered with the CoV of 19% for the minimum values and 37%
for the maximum values, respectively, the comparison is better in the cladding pressures, the CoV
being about 3% to 23%.

Figure 2: Medium-rise building Figure 3: High-rise building

Table 3: Characteristics of cladding pressure and base force of medium-rise building
Coefficient Pressure (kPa) GRF Base force
Country Shear Moment
Max Min Max Min GLF (kN) (MNm)
China 1.00 -2.00 1.22 -2.44 1.82 5074 153
Japan 2.71 -3.00 2.14 -2.37 2.04 5061 132
Korea 1.92 -3.20 1.53 -2.54 2.20 5534 134
Mean value 1.88 -2.73 1.63 -2.45 2.02 5223 140
Coefficient of variation 0.37 0.19 0.23 0.03 0.08 0.03 0.07
6th European and African Conference on Wind Engineering 5

5 Gust Response Factor

Among the three countries’ standards, gust response factor (GRF) is specified to take into account of
turbulent wind actions on stiff structures with gust loading factor (GLF), such as the above-mentioned
low-rise building and medium-rise building, and structural dynamic response of very flexible
structures with dynamic response factor (DRF), such as the high-rise building in Fig. 3. Table 3 also
shows the comparison of gust loading factors and base forces of the medium-rise building due to three
countries’ standards. The mean value and the CoV of GLF are equal to 2.02 and 8%, which shows
quite large differences. The calculated values of base forces, however, reached to quite small CoV, 3%
in base shears and 7% in base bending moments, which demonstrates no significant correlation
between GLF and base force.
The high-rise building, shown in Fig. 3, was 183m high, with the rectangular cross section of 46m by
30m located in urban terrain. The building was assumed to have an average density of 160 kg/m3, and
linear mode shapes in both sway directions with natural frequencies of 0.20Hz. The structural damping
ratio was specified to be 0.012 for base force calculation. Design wind speeds at the top of the building,
183m, was assumed to be 59m/s for 3-seconds averaging time, 41m/s for 10-minutes and 37m/s for 1
hour, respectively, and a turbulence intensity of 0.17 at the top was also assumed. For wind direction
normal to the 46m wall, only along-wind loading and base force are discussed in the following.
Table 4 shows the characteristics of wind loading and base force of the high-rise building. Since all
three standards use 10-minutes design wind speed, the velocity pressure q at the top of the building has
very small CoV, 1.2%. The exposure factor Ce was defined as

∫ ( )
∫ ( ) ( ) (4)

in which H is the height of the building and  is the exponent of Power Law. The calculated mean
value and CoV of Ce are equal to 0.648 and 5.8% shown in Table 4. The pressure coefficient Cp was
specified in each standard or code, and its mean value and CoV are 1.27 and 3.3%. Both Ce and Cp
have very small value of CoVs. The GLF or DRF Cg was provided in each standard or code, and the
mean value and CoV are 2.27 and 5.4%, respectively. As the result, the mean value and CoV of the
wind loading W are 1.941 and 5.1%, which is quite small. Furthermore, the calculated values of base
forces show the similar CoVs, 5.9% in shear force and 9.9% in bending moment.
Table 4: Characteristics of Wind Loading and Base Force of High-Rise Building
qH W Base Force
Economy 2 Ce Cp Cg 2 Shear Moment
kN/m kN/m (kN) (MNm)
China 1.051 0.694 1.30 2.16 2.048 22686 2542
Japan 1.025 0.649 1.21 2.44 1.964 21540 2162
Korea 1.051 0.602 1.30 2.20 1.810 19637 2017
Mean value 1.042 0.648 1.27 2.27 1.941 21288 2240
Coefficient of variation 0.012 0.058 0.033 0.054 0.051 0.059 0.099

6 Conclusions and Harmonization

This paper examines the differences and similarities of wind loading standards in three east
Asia countries, including China, Japan and Korea. Following wind loading chain, four
6th European and African Conference on Wind Engineering 6

variables including velocity pressure, exposure factor, pressure coefficient and gust response
factor were evaluated and compared with mean values and coefficients of variation. From the
comparison and contrast of wind loading calculations of three typical buildings, the
conclusions and further harmonization can be reached as follows.
1. Velocity pressure q mainly depends on four parameters including air density, reference
height, averaging time and return period. Both reference height and averaging time have no
difference among three countries, and air density has very small coefficients of variation of
1.1%. Although the coefficient of variation of averaging time has 2.4% coefficient of
variation, which resulted in 4.3% coefficient of variation of velocity pressure among three
countries, and the harmonization of velocity pressure shall be in unification of return period in
east Asia region.
2. The number of terrain categories is four for China and Korea and five for Japan, and the
exponent values of Power Law are between 0.10 and 0.12 in the minimum category and
between 0.30 and 0.35 in the maximum category, respectively. These values resulted in the
exposure factor CoVs of 4.2% in the minimum category and 29.5% in the maximum category.
Future harmonization should begin with simplification and unification of terrain categories for
surface roughness exposures, in particular for maximum terrain category.
3. Pressure coefficient has rather large coefficients of variation, 19% to 37% in the medium-
rise building, and cladding pressure has relatively smaller CoVs, between 3% and 23%.
Although the CoV differences between pressure coefficient and cladding pressure need to be
identified, the main cause of quite large CoVs would seem to be on the fact that different
standards have different wind tunnel testing sources on which the coefficients have been
based. This could be resolved by benchmark site measurement and wind tunnel testing in the
future.
4. Gust response factor is generally specified to take into account of structural dynamic
response and turbulent wind actions. The former is totally governed by structural flexibility,
and can be called as dynamic response factor (DRF), which has no correlation with velocity
pressure. The latter includes the main account for turbulence influence, and can be defined as
gust loading factor GLF. Both gust response factor and base forces have reasonable values of
coefficient of variation among three countries, and the future harmonization may be
conducted on gust response factor.
5. Future alignments of wind loading codes and standards in the East Asia region are very
much necessary and optimistic.

Acknowledgements
This study was partially supported by the NSFC under the Grants 91215302 and by the
MOST under the 973 Program Grant 2013CB036301. The authors gratefully acknowledge the
contributions of the participants of the APEC-WW workshops and the CJK workshops,
including Prof. Y. Tamura from Japan, Prof. Y.C. Ha and Prof. Y.D. Kim from Korea.

References
Architectural Institute of Japan, Recommendations for Loads on Buildings, AIJ-RLB-2004,
Tokyo, 2004.
China Architecture and Building Press, Load Code for the Design of Building Structures,
China National Standard, GB 50009-2012, 2012.
Davenport, A.G. 2004. The Wind Loading Chain – 2004 Update. In: International Workshop
on Wind Engineering and Science, Oct. 29-30, New Delhi, India.
6th European and African Conference on Wind Engineering 7

Gairola, A. & Mittal, A. 2006. Part 2: Work Examples, In: 3rd APEC-WW Workshop, Nov. 2-3,
New Delhi, India.
Holmes, J.D. & Melbourne, W.H. 1997. Design Wind Speeds in the West Pacific. In: 4th
Asia-Pacific Conference on Wind Engineering, July 14-16, Golden Coast, Australia.
Holmes, J.D. & Weller, R. 2002. Design Wind Speeds for the Asia-Pacific Region. In:
Standards Australia, Handbook HB 212-2002, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Holmes, J.D., Tamura, Y. & Krishna, P. 2008. Wind Loads on Low, Medium and High-Rise
Buildings by Asia-Pacific Codes. In: 4th International Conference on Advances in Wind and
Structures, May 29-31, Jeju, Korea.
Holmes, J.D., Tamura, Y. & Krishna, P. 2009. Comparison of Wind Loads Calculated by
Fifteen Different Codes and Standards, for Low, Medium and High-rise Buildings, In: 11th
Americas Conference on Wind Engineering, June. 22-26, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Holmes, J.D. 2009. Developments in Codification of Wind Loads in the Asia Pacific. In: 7th
Asia-Pacific Conference on Wind Engineering, Nov. 8-12, Taipei, Chinese Taiwan.
Korean Government Guidelines of Korean Building Code – Structures, KGG-KBCS-05, 2005.
Tamura, Y., Kareem, A. Solari, G., & Kwok, K.C.S. 2005. Aspects of the Dynamic Wind-
Induced Response of Structures and Codification, In: Wind and Structures, Vol. 8, No. 4,
2005, pp. 251-268.
Zhou, Y., Kijewski, T. & Kareem, A. 2002. Along-Wind Load Effects on Tall Buildings:
Comparative Study of Major International Codes and Standards, In: Journal of Structural
Engineering, Vol. 128, No. 6, pp. 788-796.