Free Standing Privacy Fence - Wind Loading

[lakeroadster]

I am a retired ME and we are working on a project for our mountain home.

Anybody here have experience with loadings associated with free standing fencing? This will be used in a forest area as privacy fencing.

Original design was an a-frame arrangement, using rusted steel roofing as panels and modular gabion (rock baskets) as ballast to prevent overturning in high wind conditions.

Looking for a better design that negates the bulk of the wind loading.

Something with either swinging panels that relieve air pressure, or a free hanging canvas tarp, attached only at the top of the a-frame.

These would allow the rigid panels, or tarp, to blow in the wind, thus relieving much of the forces associated with wind loading.

Any thoughts on how one would look at the associated wind loads with such a design?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and comments.

John

[Cake of Doom]

You've pretty much broke the back of it with your drawing. Unfortunately you'll never completely negate the need to address wind loading. Taking quakes out of the picture, wind can be a structures worst enemy. Having tilting louvres (or similar) can help for the day to day average pressure but you'll still need to consider the gusting speeds. That peak velocity will be affected by where you are in relation to the mountains (assumption based on mountain home) and the altitude above sea level.

I can do my best to help you but your local codes are going to be your best friend.

[lakeroadster]

Cake of Doom... thanks for the reply.

No permit if the fence is 6 foot in height or less.

We recently had a pole barn built and it was designed for an Ultimate Wind Speed of 116 mph. So I ran some numbers... see below:

We'll probably not do a design with tilting panels. I like the idea, but the neighbor kids are monkeys... and pinch points kind of scare me.

The soil here is hard to dig... it is basically rock (Rocky Mountains) hence the free standing design. The good news is 4" to 8" cobble is cheap $.

[Cake of Doom]

I double checked the numbers and they worked out fine. Sorry if my last post sounded a bit doomsday prophecy but mountains and wind loadings trip my structural phobias.

[lakeroadster]

No worries. Thanks for the review.

Happy Trails,

John

[Kelly_Bramble]

Engineers Edge has a couple of documents on wind loadings for fences and vertical walls.

See:

• Wind loads on fences and Hoarding's
• Wind Pressure exerted on Vertical Wall Equations

[lakeroadster]

Here's some photo's of the 1st finished fence section. It should blend right in once the steel rusts.

image links removed

[Cake of Doom]

Looking good. How stable does it feel?

[Kelly_Bramble]

That fence would withstand a Rhino charge...

[lakeroadster]

Looking good. How stable does it feel?

"Rock" solid The gabion really do anchor it well.

[lakeroadster]

Well Photobucket raised their hosting rates.. and I'm a tight wad so my photo's above are gone.

I've attach some photo's here... The fence will blend in much better once the steel rusts....

By the way we've had some crazy winds as of lately... but the fence is still rock solid..