A seminar will be organised by Dubai Municipality to discuss main issues and solution strategies in key areas of wind engineering for the analysis and design of tall buildings in the Gulf region.

The seminar, titled "Wind Engineering for Tall Buildings in the Gulf" will be held tomorrow (May 20, 2008) and comes as part of the civic body's initiative to offer a continuous learning environment for the local architects and consultant engineers, said an official spokesman.

It will be held at the City Hall from 9am to 12.30pm and is organised in association with BMT Fluid Mechanics.
 
"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," said director of buildings department at the municipality Khalid Mohammed Saleh.
 
"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.

Two prominent experts will address the audience at the seminar. In the first lecture, 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 and 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. – TradeArabia News Service