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CONTENTS
Volume 9, Number 3, May 2006
 


Abstract
Parent wind data are often acknowledged to fit a Weibull probability distribution, implying that wind epoch maxima should fall into the domain of attraction of the Gumbel (Type I) extreme value distribution. However, observations of wind epoch maxima are not fitted well by this distribution and a Generalised Extreme Value (GEV) analysis leading to a Type III fit empirically appears to be better. Thus there is an apparent paradox. The reasons why advocates of the GEV approach seem to prefer it are briefly summarised. This paper gives a detailed analysis of the errors involved when the GEV is fitted to epoch maxima of Weibull origin. It is shown that the results in terms of the shape parameter are an artefact of these errors. The errors are unavoidable with the present sample sizes. If proper significance tests are applied, then the null hypothesis of a Type I fit, as predicted by theory, will almost always be retained. The GEV leads to an unacceptable ambiguity in defining design loads. For these reasons, it is concluded that the GEV approach does not seem to be a sensible option.

Key Words
extreme wind speeds; parent wind speeds; GEV; Weibull.

Address
RWDI-Anemos Ltd, Unit 4, Lawrence Way, Dunstable LU6 1BD, UK

Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of wind velocity measurements obtained from four ultrasonic anemometers arranged in a vertical formation. The anemometers were located in a rural environment with a view to providing detailed information on the flow statistics of the lower part of the atmospheric boundary layer, particularly for the extreme wind events that are important in loading calculations. The data is analysed using both conventional analysis and conditional sampling. The latter is combined with wavelet analysis in order to provide a detailed analysis of the energy/frequency relationship of the extreme events. The work presented in this paper suggests that on average the extreme events occur as a result of the superposition of two independent mechanisms - large scale events that scale on the atmospheric boundary layer thickness and small scale events a few tens of metres in size.

Key Words
turbulence; coherent structures.

Address
M. Sterling and C. J. Baker; School of Engineering, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UKrnP. J. Richards; School of Engineering, University of Auckland, New ZealandrnR. P. Hoxey and A. D. Quinn; School of Engineering, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

Abstract
his paper describes a procedure to develop fragility curves for woodframe structures subjected to lateral wind loads. The fragilities are cast in terms of horizontal displacement criteria (maximum drift at the top of the shearwalls). The procedure is illustrated through the development of fragility curves for one and two-story residential woodframe buildings in high wind regions. The structures were analyzed using a monotonic pushover analysis to develop the relationship between displacement and base shear. The base shear values were then transformed to equivalent nominal wind speeds using information on the geometry of the baseline buildings and the wind load equations (and associated parameters) in ASCE 7-02. Displacement vs. equivalent nominal wind speed curves were used to determine the critical wind direction, and Monte Carlo simulation was used along with wind load parameter statistics provided by Ellingwood and Tekie (1999) to construct displacement vs. wind speed curves. Wind speeds corresponding to a presumed limit displacement were used to construct fragility curves. Since the fragilities were fit well using a lognormal CDF and had similar logarithmic standard deviations (x), a quick analysis to develop approximate fragilities is possible, and this also is illustrated. Finally, a compound fragility curve, defined as a weighted combination of individual fragilities, is developed.

Key Words
fragility; performance-based design; probability; pushover analysis; shearwall; wind; wood structures.

Address
Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-3136, USA

Abstract
An improvement to the spectral representation algorithm for the simulation of wind velocity fields on large scale structures is proposed in this paper. The method proposed by Deodatis (1996) serves as the basis of the improved algorithm. Firstly, an interpolation approximation is introduced to simplify the computation of the lower triangular matrix with the Cholesky decomposition of the cross-spectral density (CSD) matrix, since each element of the triangular matrix varies continuously with the wind spectra frequency. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) technique is used to further enhance the efficiency of computation. Secondly, as an alternative spectral representation, the vectors of the triangular matrix in the Deodatis formula are replaced using an appropriate number of eigenvectors with the spectral decomposition of the CSD matrix. Lastly, a turbulent wind velocity field through a vertical plane on a long-span bridge (span-wise) is simulated to illustrate the proposed schemes. It is noted that the proposed schemes require less computer memory and are more efficiently simulated than that obtained using the existing traditional method. Furthermore, the reliability of the interpolation approximation in the simulation of wind velocity field is confirmed.

Key Words
simulation; spectral representation; stationary; multivariate; wind velocity.

Address
State Key Lab for Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

Abstract
The pressure and drag measurements were carried out in the wind tunnel to investigate the drag reduction of the disk by using an interference rod placed upstream. The results indicate that there is a pair of standing vortices in the front stagnation region of the disk induced by the rod. The standing vortices can decrease the pressure on the disk upwind side; hence it can reduce the drag of the disk. With an increasing rod diameter, the standing vortices are strengthened and more drag reduction can be achieved for the disk. With rod diameter d/D = 0.05 (d, D are the diameters of rod and disk, respectively), the total drag of the disk can be reduced by about 9% compared with that of the bare disk.

Key Words
drag reduction; disk; interference rod; pressure measurement.

Address
Institute of Fluid Mechanics, Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Beijing,10083, P. R. China


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