Question:
What is the formula used to calculate the ASCE 7 wind velocity profile?
Answer:
The wind velocity profile in RWIND Simulation according to the ASCE 7-16 standard [1] is calculated based on Eq. 26.10-1. The coefficients and basic wind speed in this equation below are incorporated in the wind pressure equation.
Velocity wind pressure (imperial): q-z = 0.00256 K-z K-zt K-d K-e V2
We must reference this equation to calculate the inlet velocity relative to elevation for the RWIND Simulation CFD wind tunnel. To consider only velocity rather than pressure from this equation, the basic wind speed is multiplied by the square-root of each coefficient. Notice the velocity variable in Eq. 26.10-1 is squared which requires the square root of the coefficients to be considered.
$Inlet\;velocity\;=\;V\sqrt{K_e\;\cdot\;K_{d\;}\cdot\;K_z\;\cdot\;K_{zt}}$
Because the ASCE 7-16 standard does not address wind CFD analysis and magnitude of the required inlet velocity, it is difficult to draw comparisons. Therefore, this is the closest estimate for calculating the RWIND Simulation inlet wind velocity per the code.