Question no 2.

When air flows around the houses, the house applies an opposite force against it and the resultant
opposing force can be separated in to two component which are drag force and lift force. Lift is
the component of the force that is perpendicular to oncoming flow direction which is always
accompanied by a drag force which is parallel to the flow.

When air flow around the object there occurs certain region where there is very minimum
pressure and some region with very high pressure which is caused by variation of wind velocity
around the object. For obtaining equilibrium the air in low pressure tends to move toward the
high-pressure region which create force in object which acts as a barrier between these regions.

Theoretically, the drag force in a body can be found by using formula,

C D Aρ V 2
FD=
2

And the lift force in a body can be found by using formula,

C L Aρ V 2
F L=
2

Where,
Cd =Coefficient of Drag
CL =Coefficient of Lift
A=Area of object exposed to windρ = Density of air
V= Velocity of air

When an air flows through roof as shown in fig. a and fig. b we can clearly see the force acting
on roof truss during air flow and the direction of components (Lift force, Drag force and
Resultant force). There is high pressure region below roof and low-pressure region above roof
due to the velocity variation of wind. Lift force is acting perpendicular to the flow and drag force
if acting in direction to flow.

As the figure suggest, θ is slope of inclination of roof truss. When the inclination is increased or
decreased as seen in fig. c and fig. d, when there is smaller slope there is large uplift pressures
with lower drag force. Also, increasement in slope causes the lift force to decrease whereas the
drag force increases in increase in angle of inclination. As from this we can conclude that there
will be higher uplift pressure (negative pressure or suction pressure) for the flat roof with zero
slope with no any drag force due to pressure variation and which lift force goes decreasing in
increasing of pitch angle with increasing drag force on roof of building with zero lift force when
slope is perpendicular to the flow.
The above figure can also be explained by using,

Lift force = R cos θ

Drag force= R sin θ

Where R is the Resultant force of the roof truss.

We have

When θ=0 cos0=1, sin0=0

Which give,

Lift force= R (Maximum)

Drag force= 0 (Minimum)

And when θ=90, cos90=0, sin90=1

Lift force= 0 (Minimum)

Drag force= R (Maximum)

This theory was also proven right experimentally. Deepak Prasad, Tupura Uliate and
M.Rafiuddin Ahmed [1] in 2009 studied the building models with flat hip and gabled roof with
different pitched from 15, 20, 30. And 45 degree slope in the Thermo-fluid laboratory of
University of the South Pacific. For the tunneling testing of model configuration was carried out
in boundary layer wind tunnel. Height of the model were kept same. The building model face a
turbulent wind of 7m/s and value of pressure coefficient all the side of wall and roof were
calculated.

The experiment shows, pressure pattern observed on the front side of wall in all models were
similar and were very high with mean pressure coefficient (Cp) above 0.9. It was observed that
the pressure on the side wall were insensitive to roof pitch and pressure distribution on side
wall for all model were similar with Cp value changes by little fractions. Major change can be
seen in leeward side or back side wall of structure. It was found that the suction pressure
decreases on increase of pitch or slope of roof. Which mean there was strong suction pressure
on back wall on flat roof configuration with Cp -0.94 while it reduces to -0.51 in 30-degrees
slope gabled roof.

While on flat roof, it was found that suction for was very high due to flow separation taking
place in corner which was reduced significantly on pitched roof. In 30-degree slope, it was
observed that suction decrease from leading edge to ridge on windward side as the separate
flow tends to reattach, but on the other side of the ridge it continues to increase along the
entire leeward roof side. In 45-degree slope it was found there was no any suction and there
was positive pressure in windward area and which tend to increase from edge to ridge due to
reduction of flow area due to increased slope. Following table 1 show the detail pressure
coefficient for different roof use in experiment and figure show the location of the face A, B, C,
D, E and F.
 Name of different face of building in experiment

From the above theory and experiment we can say the major roof flipping depends upon the
velocity of flowing wind (Pressure variation in and out of roof) and the angle of inclination.

REFERENCE

1. Deepak P., Tupura U. and M.Rafiuddi A. Wind Loads on Low-Rise

Building Models with Different Roof Configuration
2. Gerhardt, H. J. and Kramer, C., Effect of Building Geometry on Roof Wind
Loading
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#:~:text=Lift%20is%20defined
%20as%20the,parallel%20to%20the%20flow%20direction.
4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/aerodynamic-lift