Citation

Hunt JCR, Poulton EC, Mumford JC. Build. Environ. 1976; 11(1): 15-28.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1976, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0360-1323(76)90015-9

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Experiments on the effects of wind on people are described. About 40 people were involved in tests in a wind tunnel at the National Physical Laboratory. The wind tunnel was specially-adapted to produce gusty winds. The volunteers performed a number of everyday tasks at wind speeds of 4 and 8[middle dot]5 m/s with and without turbulence. The steadiness and direction of walking were measured when the volunteers entered the tunnel and walked up and down. Forces on the ground were also measured. Six groups of volunteers gave subjective verbal assessments of wind conditions ranging from 4 to 12[middle dot]5 m/s.From the experiments we have drawn conclusions as to what kinds of wind speed, gustiness and variation of wind speed are found to be tolerable, are found to affect performance, and are found to affect the people's balance while walking. We find people to be sensitive to variation in the wind so that previous criteria for acceptable wind speeds need to be revised downwards. New criteria are proposed to enable architects and planners to use wind speed and gustines data to predict whether wind conditions are likely to be acceptable or not.