Use of Artificial Neural Networks to Predict Wind-Induced External Pressure Coefficients on a Low-Rise Building: A Comparative Study

Wind flow on a bluff body is a complex and nonlinear phenomenon that has been mainly studied experimentally or analytically. Several mathematical methods have been developed to predict the wind-induced pressure distribution on bluff bodies; however, most of them result unpractical due to the mathematical complexity required. Long-short term memory artificial neural networks with deep learning have proven to be efficient tools in the solution of nonlinear phenomena, although the choice of a more efficient network model remains a topic of open discussion for researchers. The main objective of this study is to develop long-short term memory artificial neural network models to predict the external pressure distribution of a low-rise building. For the development of the artificial neural network models, the multilayer perceptron and the recurrent neural network were also employed for comparison purposes. To train the artificial neural networks, a database with the external pressure coefficients from boundary layer wind tunnel tests of a low-rise building is employed. The analysis results indicate that the long-short term memory artificial neural network model and the multilayer perceptron neural network outperform the recurrent neural network.