Wind (Sep 2023)

Uncertainty Quantification and Simulation of Wind-Tunnel-Informed Stochastic Wind Loads

  • Thays G. A. Duarte,
  • Srinivasan Arunachalam,
  • Arthriya Subgranon,
  • Seymour M. J. Spence

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/wind3030022
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 3
pp. 375 – 393

Abstract

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The simulation of stochastic wind loads is necessary for many applications in wind engineering. The proper-orthogonal-decomposition-(POD)-based spectral representation method is a popular approach used for this purpose, due to its computational efficiency. For general wind directions and building configurations, the data-informed POD-based stochastic model is an alternative that uses wind-tunnel-smoothed auto- and cross-spectral density as input, to calibrate the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the target load process. Even though this method is straightforward and presents advantages, compared to using empirical target auto- and cross-spectral density, the limitations and errors associated with this model have not been investigated. To this end, an extensive experimental study on a rectangular building model considering multiple wind directions and configurations was conducted, to allow the quantification of uncertainty related to the use of short-duration wind tunnel records for calibration and validation of the data-informed POD-based stochastic model. The results demonstrate that the data-informed model can efficiently simulate stochastic wind loads with negligible model errors, while the errors associated with calibration to short-duration wind tunnel data can be important.

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