Wind effects on snowdrift on stepped flat roofs

When estimating snow load on a building roof in a heavy-snowfall area, it is important to know the volume and drift. Snowdrift on a building is closely related to the wind flow pattern around a building. rpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between snowdrift and wind flow on buildings, and to thus predict the snowdrift from wind flow patterns. This paper investigates snowdrift and wind flow around a model building with a stepped flat roof. Snowdrift patterns on model roofs were observed from field measurements in Hokkaido, and wind velocity patterns around the model were measured in wind tunnel tests. Then some correlation was found in snowdrift and wind acceleration in the vicinity of the roof surface.