When the framers of the Jeddah Tower—designed to rise higher than 1 kilometer—needed advice on the wind climate about 500 m above the earth’s atmospheric boundary layer, they turned to RWDI Consulting Engineers and Scientists.
RWDI’s challenge was that the standard approach in wind engineering analysis wouldn’t work. Typically, an engineer develops a model of wind characteristics at the site, based on design wind speeds provided in building codes or generated from historical wind measurements, and then extrapolates up to the building’s height using simplified engineering models of the boundary layer, where wind speeds depend on the roughness of the topography, says Jon Galsworthy, an RWDI principal. But, above the boundary layer, weather is determined by the effects of larger masses of air.