Abstract

A recently-completed building was fitted with a roof screen fabricated from perforated sheet metal panels having “U”-shaped upturned flanges. When wind impinges on the panels, complex tone clusters are generated, leading to complaints from the occupants. The unusual character of the tonal spectrum is reminiscent of a film sound effect intended to simulate a hovering extraterrestrial spacecraft. After some preliminary (but inconclusive) field investigations, it was decided to test samples of the perforated panel in a large commercial wind tunnel where the speed and angle of the airstream could be controlled. Tones generated in the tunnel were found to occur in groups or clusters — these are most pronounced when the airstream’s angle of incidence is close to grazing. Gradually increasing airspeed caused the frequency of the tones to “jump” from one cluster to the next higher cluster. The physical principles of the tone-generating mechanism are not fully understood; however, it appears that structural resonances in the panel flanges are excited by air flowing over the perforate. Some form of a positive structural-acoustical feedback loop is involved since a) the frequencies within each tone cluster are quite stable and, b) damping the panel flanges extinguishes the tones.