Probabilistic Description of Wind Effects and Wind Load Factors for Database-Assisted Design

Published

June 1, 2003

Author(s)

S M. Diniz, Emil Simiu

Abstract

Database-assisted design (DAD) for wind results in structures with reduced material consumption and failure risks, i.e., in improved safety and sustainability. We present a DAD-compatible probabilistic procedure, and the attendant WiLEP software, for estimating (a) wind effects corresponding to any mean recurrence interval of the wind effects corresponding to any mean recurrence interval of the wind speeds, and (b) wind load factors. Unlike the ASCE 7 Standard and earlier structural reliability estimates, the procedure accounts for the inherent randomness in the estimation of peaks and for relevant wind-related knowledge uncertainties. We report that: (1) The extreme wind speed distribution type affects significantly the estimates of the load factors. Our estimates based on the Extreme Value Type III REverse Weibull distribution yield load factors consistent with values specified in the ASCE 7 Standard -- in contrast to estimates published in the 1980's. (2) The variability of the ratio between wind speeds averaged over different time intervals can affect significantly the estimated wind load factor. (3) An increase in size of the extreme wind data set from, say, 30 to 50 years, has marginal effect on load factor estimates. (4) For low-rise buildings in open terrain wind load factors are typically affected weakly by even large unceratinties with respect to terrain roughness lengths. Additional research on the effect of terrain roughness uncertainties for buildings in built-up terrain may require an expansion of the aerodynamic databases currently available. We note that consideration of uncertainties in isolation, as commonly performed by some analysts and wind tunnel operators, especially for peak effects estimation, can be misleading; for structural applications, uncertainties need to be considered collectively.

Proceedings Title

International Conference on Wind Engineering | 11th | | Wind Science and Engineering Research Center

Volume

1

Conference Dates

June 2-5, 2003

Conference Location

Undefined

Conference Title

International Conference on Wind Engineering

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

building technology, database-assisted design, load factors, probabilistic methods, structural reliability, wind loads

Citation

Diniz, S. and Simiu, E. (2003), Probabilistic Description of Wind Effects and Wind Load Factors for Database-Assisted Design, International Conference on Wind Engineering | 11th | | Wind Science and Engineering Research Center, Undefined (Accessed May 1, 2024)