San Diego, CA | 17 stories | 487,421 sq ft
The United States Courthouse in San Diego is a 487,421 square foot state-of-the-art facility that includes a 17-story Eccentric Braced Frame steel tower over an open public plaza and 2 levels of below grade secured parking for 105 cars. The objectives of the test were to predict the wind pressures to be used in the design of exterior building cladding and evaluate the pedestrian-level winds (PLW) in and around the project. The wind study used a scaled model of the site. Wind-tunnel tests were conducted for 36 wind directions spaced at 10-degree intervals. These wind directions capture the most frequent and strongest wind observed from the wind data collection point for San Diego, California. For the four elevations of the building and the roof, surface points were measured to evaluate the pressure. Using the test data as input to a computer code analysis, wind pressures were calculated.
