Database-Assisted Design, Standardization, and Wind Direction Effects.
Database-Assisted Design, Standardization, and Wind
Direction Effects.
(104 K)
Rigato, A.; Chang, P.; Simiu, E.
Journal of Structural Engineering, Vol. 127, No. 8,
853-860, August 2001.
Keywords:
wind direction; wind effects; databases;
standardization; extreme values; meteorology; structural
engineering
Abstract:
The writers present a simple methodology, developed for
use in design assisted by electronic aerodynamic and
climatological databases (for short, database-assisted
design), that allows a realistic assessment of wind
directionality effects. The methodology is applied to
typical low-rise industrial steel frame buildings with a
rectangular shape in plan, located in hurricane-prone
areas, and results are compared with results obtained by
the procedure specified in the ASCE 7-98 Standard,
which, for buildings, consists of applying a blanket
directionality reduction factor Kd = 0.85 to wind
effects obtained by disregarding directionality. The
results show that, for significant numbers of buildings
in hurricane-prone areas, the use of the ASCE procedure
can result in the underestimation of wind effects
corresponding to strength design. They also show that
database-assisted design for wind loads offers the
potential for significantly more risk-consistent, safer,
and economical design for buildings with both known and
unknown orientation.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899