Estimation of wind loading on trees for a vegetated building envelope: a multi-scale experimental study

With the sustainability movement, vegetated building envelopes are gaining more popularity, which requires special wind effect investigations both from sustainability and resiliency perspectives. This paper focuses on wind load estimation on small- and fullscale trees used as part of green roofs and balconies. The small-scale wind load assessment was carried out using the Politecnico di Milano wind tunnel. The large trees were investigated at the new 12-fan Wall of Wind facility, Florida international University. The effect of Reynold's number and shape change on the overall loads measured at the base of the trees (near the roots) has been investigated by testing at different modelscales and wind speeds. In addition, destructive tests were conducted to examine the security of the trees in soil and to assess the effectiveness of a proposed structural mitigation system.