Wind-Induced Noise

Early avoidance and effective mitigation of wind-induced noise from building elements

The wind often causes parts of buildings or structures to make noise. Usually this “aeroacoustic” (wind-induced) noise is insignificant. But sometimes building elements make significant tonal noise that can be heard miles away. Such problems are often extremely annoying and difficult to solve. They can also become publicly infamous: Because aeroacoustic issues are rare and conspicuous, they are often considered newsworthy.

The good news is that the fixes are usually easy—if you look for this issue during early design. (The potential culprits are often quite small.) But once aeroacoustic noise issues occur, they can be technically difficult and very costly to mitigate—and to litigate.

Our service

We offer a unique range of services to address aeroacoustic noise: desktop design reviews, wind tunnel testing and remediation of existing aeroacoustic issues.

We can do a screening assessment on your early detailed design to flag potential aeroacoustic noise issues. After this review, we can provide design guidance to help you eliminate the risk.

When problems are anticipated—or have been observed—we can move to the wind tunnel if needed. We use these measurements to identify the character and severity of noise produced and the specific conditions required to induce it. We’ll work with you to interpret these results and find a solution that works in the context of your project.

We are experts in wind climate, acoustics, fluid/structure interactions, and wind modeling and testing. Few firms have this full complement of expertise; it allows us to perform this work efficiently, saving you time and money.

With our results, you can be confident that aeroacoustic noise will not be an annoyance and that proposed mitigation methods will be effective in practice.