THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF TALL BUILDINGS

Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)

PERFORMANCE BASED DESIGN EXTREME WIND LOADS ON

A TALL BUILDING

ANURAG JAIN,1* MUKUND SRINIVASAN1 AND GARY C. HART2

1
Hart Consultant Group, 2425 Olympic Blvd., Suite 670E, Santa Monica, CA 90404, U.S.A.
2
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

SUMMARY
This paper presents a procedure for the calculation of wind loads on a proposed 385 ft tall building located in
strong wind and mixed strong wind and hurricane wind regions. The procedure for the computation of design wind
loads uses mixed distribution and Monte Carlo simulation. The results of a probabilistic analysis of hurricane wind
speeds are combined with the probability distribution of recorded extreme wind speeds (excluding hurricane data)
at the site. A 50-year sample of extreme wind speeds is created and the maximum 50-year wind (from the
hurricane and the recorded data) is noted. The simulation is repeated for a large number of samples (>10000) and
the probability distribution of the 50-year wind speed is computed for use in establishing the design wind speed
Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

1. INTRODUCTION
The design of tall buildings that are located in sites where both extreme winds and hurricanes, or
typhoons, occur is a topic of special significance. The structural engineering design variable that forms
the basis of modern structural engineering can be denoted by W, which is defined to be the maximum
wind load that the structural system of a building will experience in the design life of the building. The
default design life, which represents the exposure time for the building, is typically taken as 50 years.
A performance based wind design then identifies different wind hazard levels consistent with different
risk levels. Table I provides an example of these wind hazard levels and the associated derived wind
return periods. Therefore, the structural engineering design objective is to calculate the wind forces for
any desired hazard level on the building for this mixed extreme wind and hurricane environment.
The case study building used in this paper is a 30-story steel frame building that is proposed to be
located in downtown San Francisco near the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. The building
footprint is ‘L’ shaped with a rectangular tower rising over the base. The building was studied in a
boundary layer wind tunnel to determine the wind induced floor loads for designing the structural
frame, and the wind induced pressures for designing glass and cladding. Wind forces and twisting
moments on the building and wind flow around the building were determined from a 1:304
8 scale
model in a boundary layer wind tunnel. The model included the 30-story building and an area covering
nine city blocks around it. The historical wind speed data for the building site was obtained from the
National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) weather station at San Francisco International Airport. The
dynamic properties of the building for the wind tunnel analysis and other required data were obtained

* Correspondence to: Anurag Jain, Hart Consultant Group, 2425 Olympic Blvd., Suite 670E, Santa Monica, CA-90404, USA.

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received July 2000
Accepted August 2000
10 A. JAIN, M. SRINIVASAN AND G. C. HART

Table I. Wind hazard levels and associated return periods

Wind speed having probability of exceedance Mean return period (years)

64% in 50 years 50
50% in 50 years 72
10% in 50 years 475
2% in 50 years 2475

from an ETABS model of the building. The dynamic properties of the building are necessary for
determining the vibration characteristics of the force balance on which the building model is mounted
in the wind tunnel.

2. WIND CLIMATOLOGY AT THE BUILDING SITE

The case study building site is located in downtown San Francisco adjacent to San Francisco Bay. The
bay borders the building site to the East. San Bruno Mountain to the North rises to a height of 1300 ft.
A North–South trending ridge of coastal mountains to the West varies in elevation from 700 to 1900 ft,
being highest southward along the peninsula. The Pacific Ocean West of the ridge is about 6 miles
from the building site. A broad gap to the Northwest between the San Bruno Mountain and the coastal
mountains, allows a strong flow of marine air over the area and dominates the local climate. The San
Francisco Bay area experiences a marine-type climate characterized by mild and moderately wet
winters and by dry, cool summers.
For this wind study, historical extreme wind speed data were collected from the National Weather
Service (NWS) station at the San Francisco International Airport. The data were obtained from the
NCDC in Asheville, North Carolina. Data from 1960 to 1997, a total of 38 years of monthly maximum
wind speeds, were used in the statistical analysis.

3. TOPOGRAPHIC EFFECTS
Topographic effects are a very important component of any wind study. The topography of the terrain
affects the wind speed and causes the wind to drag on the ground to a lesser or greater extent. This in
turn affects the wind speed profile and hence the forces on the building subjected to wind forces. The
topography of a site can be expressed in terms of a roughness length z0. The larger the roughness length
z0, the more pronounced is the effect of the terrain on the wind velocity profile. Consequently, the
smooth open sea has the smallest roughness lengths and very large values of roughness lengths are
found in the centers of large cities. Table II shows a set of typical values for roughness lengths from
Simiu and Scanlan (1996).
The wind tunnel model includes the effects of the immediate buildings around the building site.
What needs to be quantified is the average topography of the area around the building site. This is
accomplished by visually defining the topography in the general vicinity of the site with the aid of site
visits and photographs. The site photographs are compared with standard photographic definitions for
roughness length, e.g. Cook (1985). This process of defining the building site topography is repeated
for the wind speed data collection site at San Francisco Airport. The values of the roughness lengths in
the eight principal directions define the building site topography. The topography and surroundings
vary by compass direction. The site roughness length z0 for each of the eight directions at the building
site and the NCDC weather station at San Francisco Airport are listed in Table III.

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
 EXTREME WIND LOADS DESIGN 11

Table II. Typical values of surface roughness lengths

Type of surface Roughness length (cm)

Sea surface 0
0003–0
5

Snow surface 0
1–0
6
Mown grass 0
1–1
Fallow field 2
High grass 4–10
Pine forest 90–100
Suburbs 20–40
Town center 80–120

4. WIND SPEED DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE

The most valuable source of information in the estimation of future wind speeds at the building site is
the historical wind speed data that has been recorded at the building site or at a nearby NWS site such
as San Francisco International Airport. Historical wind speed data provide information about the
statistical behavior of wind speeds and are used extensively to predict the maximum expected wind
speeds during the design life of the building. For most buildings, the design life is 50 years and the
wind speeds in the 1997 Uniform Building Code (U.B.C. 1997) reflect this. Historical wind speed data
are studied in terms of direction as well as magnitude. The directionality of historical wind speeds is
usually a function of the phenomena generating these winds or of special topographical features. Such
information may be used to the advantage of the building in certain cases.
The wind speed environment at the site is characterized by wind speed records that are collected by
an NWS station or a reliable recording site that is close enough to the building site. The procedure used
to characterize the wind speed environment at the building site is shown in Figure 1. The wind speeds
from the weather station are collected in a database. The data obtained includes the wind speed,
direction, averaging time, height of the recording instrument and other relevant information. The data
is then grouped by direction. For example, all of the winds coming from the north are identified and
separated into one group. This is done for the eight principal directions.
Following this grouping, the local environment at, as well as upwind from the weather station must
be characterized. This characterization is through the determination of the surface roughness at the
building site and the weather station site as discussed earlier. The procedure converts all the historical

Table III. Surface roughness lengths

Roughness length (cm)

Direction Building site San Francisco Airport

N 51 7
NE 16 7
E 28 7
SE 65 7
S 80 7
SW 80 7
W 80 7
NW 80 7

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
12 A. JAIN, M. SRINIVASAN AND G. C. HART

Figure 1. Wind speed data analysis procedure

wind speed data recorded at the NWS station into data corresponding to a reference exposure referred
to as an ‘open country exposure’, which corresponds to a surface roughness length of 5–10 cm. All the
data is converted to a reference height of 10 m.
For example, a wind speed measured at the NWS station would be converted to a reference wind
speed using equation (1).
" #0?0706
ln ZHO;OC
REF
ZO;OC
VREF ˆ VNWS …1†
ln ZHANE ZO;NWS
O;NWS

where HREF is the reference height (10 m), zo,OC is the open country roughness length (7 cm), HANE is
the historical anemometer height at the time the data, VNWS, was recorded, and zo,NWS is the roughness
length at the NWS station for the direction from which VNWS was recorded. This equation is a
representation of the logarithmic profile, with the similarity law used to convert from one roughness

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
 EXTREME WIND LOADS DESIGN 13

Figure 2. Distribution of annual maximum wind speeds by direction

length to another. After performing these steps, it is possible to infer from the historical data the
frequency and magnitude of winds for different wind directions at the NWS station site. The exposure
at the building site has been characterized and a value of surface roughness length for each wind
direction has been assigned.
These roughness lengths are also used in the wind tunnel tests that are associated with this building.
Using the converted historical NWS data and the quantified exposure at the building site for each wind
direction, the frequency and magnitude of the historical winds that would have been measured at the
building site over the same period of recording as the original NWS data can be determined. The
building site exposure is incorporated into the data using an equation similar to equation (1).
Following this procedure, the mean and standard deviation of the corrected wind speeds from each
of the eight directions can be estimated. This is then used to perform a statistical analysis to compute
the 50-year return period design wind speeds from each of the eight directions. These 50-year return
period design wind speeds are used in the Wind Tunnel tests to estimate the floor forces and glass and
cladding pressures for the building.

Figure 3. Mean annual wind speeds at San Francisco Airport

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
14 A. JAIN, M. SRINIVASAN AND G. C. HART

Table IV. Ten largest wind speeds at San Francisco International Airport
(3 s gust, 10 m height, open country roughness)

Date Wind speed (mph) Direction

January 30, 1963 84
9 S

January 20, 1964 83
5 S
November 5, 1963 77
0 SW
February 8, 1960 73
8 W
December 12, 1995 73
3 SW
February 16, 1990 73
2 SW
January 5, 1965 72
9 S
October 13, 1962 71
5 S
February 9, 1962 71
5 SW
December 2, 1966 68
8 S

5. EXTREME WIND SPEEDS

The statistical wind speed analysis of the extreme wind speeds at the building site was performed using
the procedures described earlier. The percentage distribution of the maximum wind speeds from a
given direction at San Francisco International Airport is shown in Figure 2. As can be seen, the
majority of winds blow from the South to the Northwest directions, since the primary climatological
phenomenon in the San Francisco area is the sea breeze. The mean wind speeds from the different
directions for San Francisco International Airport are shown in Figure 3. These wind speeds have been
corrected to 10 m height and an open country exposure as described earlier.
The ten largest wind speeds recorded at San Francisco International Airport between 1960 and 1997
are shown in Table IV. The majority of these wind speeds occur from either the South or Southwest
directions and primarily in the winter months. This distribution of extreme annual wind speeds is also
consistent with the pattern seen in Figures 2 and 3. The statistical distribution of the extreme annual
wind speeds for each given direction at San Francisco International Airport was used to compute the
50-year design wind speeds with a hazard level corresponding to a 64 per cent, annual probability of
being exceeded in 50 years, or as more commonly stated, a ‘50-year return period’ at the building site.
Table V shows the statistically computed 50-year return period design wind speeds at the building site.
These wind speeds were used in the wind tunnel to measure the floor forces and glass and cladding
pressures.

Table V. 50-year return period design wind speeds by

wind direction at building site (3 s gust, 10 m height)

Direction Design wind speed (mph)

N 62
NE 74
E 62
SE 68
S 86
SW 86
W 74
NW 74

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
 EXTREME WIND LOADS DESIGN 15

6. WIND TUNNEL AND MODEL DESCRIPTION

Wind forces and twisting moments on the building were determined in the wind tunnel at the West
Wind Laboratory, Inc. in Marina, California. The wind tunnel at the West Wind Laboratory is a
3
33  13
33 ft (1  4 m) open return type atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel. Wind speeds in
the wind tunnel are continuously variable from 0 to 20 ft sÿ1. The test section is open without walls or a
ceiling. Ambient pressures within the test chamber are therefore essentially constant. Furthermore,
winds can flow around and over the models without constriction (as in the full-scale environment).
Therefore, blockage effects are minimal, i.e. wind speeds will not be artificially accelerated around the
model because there are no walls to constrict and accelerate the flow.
A 1:304
8 scale model (1 mm : 1 ft) was made of the case study high rise building, and all
buildings in the nine city blocks around it. The aerodynamic effects of the buildings beyond those
blocks were modeled generically with wooden blocks and spires placed upstream of the test section in
the wind tunnel. The recommended 50-year return period design wind velocities represent the
aerodynamic effects in a generic sense of the buildings beyond this nine-block group. The model was
tested in the wind tunnel with and without the surrounding buildings to discount any shielding effects.
All models were made of light-weight mat board. The model of the subject building was a rigid model
mounted on a rigid force balance.

7. WIND TUNNEL TESTING RESULTS

The design floor forces for the structural frame were measured in the wind tunnel using the wind
speeds from the statistical analysis of the historical wind speed data. Two sets of floor forces were
measured—the first is the building with surrounding buildings and the second set is the building by
itself. The use of envelope forces from these two sets of data ensures that any shielding effects from
adjacent buildings are eliminated and will yield conservative results. For each floor level, three
forces—two lateral forces and twisting moment—are given. The results are given in Table VI for the
case with the surrounding buildings and winds from the Southeast. The building footprint and force
convention for this analysis are shown in Figure 4.
The procedure used to determine instantaneous peak pressures for the design of glass and cladding
involved the use of surface mounted pressure taps on the model at a sufficient number of points to
determine accurately the complete positive (inward) and negative (outward) pressure distributions
over the building. For each position, the model was rotated until the two wind directions were found
for which positive pressures and negative pressures, respectively, were found to be extreme. Extreme
positive and negative pressures were determined as mean plus (or minus) 4 standard deviation
pressures. For design, there is always the possibility of non-zero internal pressures. The design
pressures presented in this wind study include the ASCE 7-95 (1995) recommended internal pressure
of 5 psf. For each elevation of the building, maximum measured positive and negative pressures for
the design of glass and cladding for the southeast elevation of the building are shown in Figures 5 and
6. All pressures presented in these figures can be used for tributary areas of any size but may be
reduced for larger tributary areas (>20 ft2) as per ASCE7-95 (1995).

8. CLIMATOLOGICAL BASIS FOR RISK PROFILES

The development of design wind speeds for different locations in the US and the world has typically
been based upon recorded wind speed data at certified wind speed recording stations. As mentioned
earlier, current design practice uses the 50-year return period wind speed obtained from a statistical
analysis of data at these wind speed stations. Unfortunately, the wind speeds in design codes (UBC,
ASCE 7-95) are not site specific and have a large degree of uncertainty. When significant uncertainty

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
16 A. JAIN, M. SRINIVASAN AND G. C. HART

Table VI. 50-year wind design floor forces—wind from Southeast

(with surrounding buildings)

Level Fx (kips) Fy (kips) Mz (kip-ft)

30 0
59 3
57 5
29 4
86 11
50 19
28 17
50 20
43 341
27 17
19 17
84 341
26 16
42 17
22 330
25 15
61 16
55 317
24 14
77 15
83 303
23 13
99 15
15 289
22 13
17 14
42 274
21 12
26 13
59 255
20 11
34 12
74 236
19 10
40 11
89 217
18 13
15 14
44 429
17 12
24 13
73 421
16 11
12 12
88 394
15 10
03 12
02 366
14 8
96 11
17 338
13 7
92 10
32 309
12 6
88 9
44 278
11 5
88 8
59 248
10 4
89 7
72 215
9 4
52 7
87 266
8 3
77 7
09 233
7 3
05 6
10 197
6 2
39 5
13 163
5 1
77 4
16 128
4 1
22 3
16 93
3 0
74 2
13 60
2 0
31 1
00 28

Figure 4. Force convention for floor force tables

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
 EXTREME WIND LOADS DESIGN 17

Figure 5. Positive (inward) pressures (psf)—southeast elevation

exists, structural engineers in the code development process produce code loads that tend to be
conservative. The conservatism is due to the need for the codes to be prescriptive for a variety of
locations and conditions. This has given rise to the practice of performing a site-specific wind study for
many engineering design buildings. Site-specific design wind speed studies take into account the
specific climatology of the site and the actual wind speeds recorded at the site. The design wind speeds
obtained from such studies are the most accurate estimate of the expected winds at the building site.
There are cases where the standard procedures used in obtaining the design wind speed for a site-
specific wind speed study suffer from deficiencies. These deficiencies arise from the existence of two
separate climatological phenomena driving the wind speeds at the building site. The most general
example of such a condition is that of building sites on the Atlantic Coast of the United States, the
islands of Hawaii and many locations on the Pacific Rim. In both these cases, there is a prevailing local
wind condition (e.g. sea breezes, trade winds) that generally dominates. In addition, there is a
secondary wind condition that is not as frequent such as hurricanes. The actual recorded data from
hurricanes is quite sparse and is seen on wind instrument recordings at the building site as an outlying
data point that barely affects the computed wind statistics. However, the phenomenological basis of
the hurricane is very different from the local wind condition and reflects a different risk profile. The
complete picture of the wind risk at the building site is in reality a composite profile of the risk scenario
from the local wind conditions and the hurricane wind conditions. The distribution of the wind speeds
at the building site is therefore a mixed distribution (a mixture of the two different risk profiles for local
winds and hurricane winds) and should be treated accordingly. The existence of such dual extreme

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
18 A. JAIN, M. SRINIVASAN AND G. C. HART

Figure 6. Negative (outward) pressures (psf)—southeast elevation

wind phenomena has been documented and treated in the past. Simiu and Scanlan (1996) provide a
good source of reference for studies of mixed climatological distributions.
Now, the design wind speed according to ASCE 7-95 is defined as a 3 s gust wind speed that has a
50-year return period (64 per cent chance of being exceeded in 50 years). It is worth noting that
designing for the local winds alone is unconservative and designing for the hurricane winds only may
be an unsatisfactory approach economically. The most appropriate technique lies in designing for the
true risk profile of the winds. This paper also presents a procedure adopted in computing the design
floor forces and glass and cladding pressures on the 30-story building described earlier. Three
locations have been chosen to illustrate the extent to which the mixed distribution approach yields
more realistic values of the design wind speed. The three locations represent a base case with only
local wind climatology (the actual building location in San Francisco), a hypothetical case with a
dominant local wind climatology and another hypothetical case with a dominant hurricane wind
climatology. For all three cases, the local wind climatology is held constant as that of San Francisco to
illustrate the effects of increasing the ‘mixing’ effects when the risk profile is strengthened by the
addition of a dominant hurricane climatology.
The three locations chosen are as follows.

(1) Base Case—Building as is in San Francisco. The design wind speeds for different return periods
at the building site from the southeast direction are listed in Table VII.
(2) Case A—Building in Honolulu, Hawaii. The design wind speed is the same as in the base case.

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
 EXTREME WIND LOADS DESIGN 19

Table VII. Base design wind speeds for performance

based design hazard levels (3 s gust, 10 m height)

Mean return period (years) Design wind speed

50 68
72 70
475 74
2475 80

Table VIII. Design wind speeds for performance based design hazard levels for Case A (Honolulu, 3 s gust,
10 m height)

Mean return period (years) Local wind speed Hurricane wind speed Mixed distribution wind speed

50 68 61 75
72 70 75 84
475 74 147 132
2475 80 203 213

Additionally, there is a hurricane risk defined through a 50-year return period wind speed of
63 mph (3 s gust measured at 10 m above the ground). Table VIII lists the hurricane design wind
speeds for different return periods in Honolulu. The risk profile for hurricanes in the Honolulu
area was obtained from the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and their
proprietary HUrricane RISK analysis software HURISK (1998). The hurricane risk for
Honolulu is quite low, contrary to popular conceptions of Hawaii. The predominant hurricane
risk in the Hawaiian Islands is to Kauai and the island of Hawaii and this has been observed
statistically.
(3) Case B—Building is in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The design wind speed is the same as in the
base case. Additionally, there is hurricane risk defined through a 50-year return period wind
speed of 119 mph (3 s gust measured at 10 m above the ground). Hurricane design wind speeds
at Cape Canaveral for several return periods are listed in Table IX. The risk profile for the east
coast of Florida is very high and several hurricanes have struck the area in the recent past. The
risk profile data for this building site was also obtained from SAIC.

9. MIXED DISTRIBUTION ANALYSIS

The first step in the analysis was the computation of the mean annual wind speed at the building site

Table IX. Design wind speeds for performance based design hazard levels for Case B (Cape Canaveral, 3 s gust,
10 m height)

Mean return period (years) Local wind speed Hurricane wind speed Mixed distribution wind speed

50 68 119 112
72 70 129 120
475 74 184 164
2475 80 223 218

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
20 A. JAIN, M. SRINIVASAN AND G. C. HART

due to local wind conditions. Recorded wind speed data were obtained from NCDC and sorted
according to the process shown in Figure 1. All outlying wind speed data (corresponding to possible
hurricane winds) were removed from the database. From the wind speed data, a directionally
independent wind speed database was created and the mean annual wind speed and its coefficient of
variation for this database were computed. For the hurricane risk profile, data were obtained from
SAIC in the form of HURISK reports that profiled the hurricane wind hazard curve.
Once the two component parts of the underlying climatology of each site had been identified
through their statistical distributions, the mixed distribution was simulated as follows.

(1) Simulate a sequence of maximum annual wind speeds for 50 years corresponding to the risk
profile of the local winds using Monte Carlo simulation.
(2) Simulate a sequence of maximum annual wind speeds for 50 years corresponding to the risk
profile of the hurricane winds.
(3) For a given year, the maximum annual wind speed is taken as the maximum of the simulated
local wind speed and the simulated hurricane wind speed, whichever is the greater.
(4) From the simulated samples, compute the 50-year wind speed (i.e. the maximum of the 50
annual wind speeds)
(5) Repeat the process in steps (1) to (4) 10 000 times.
(6) From the 10 000 data points of 50-year wind speeds, compute the design 50 year wind speed
corresponding to the mixed distribution.
Figure 7 shows one 50-year sample of the simulated wind speeds for the local and hurricane winds
for Case A. One sample of 50-year simulated wind speeds for Case B is shown in Figure 8. The
probability distribution function for the random variable ‘maximum 50-year wind speed’ for Case A is

Figure 7. One 50-year sample of simulation wind speeds for Case A (Honolulu)

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
 EXTREME WIND LOADS DESIGN 21

Figure 8. One 50-year sample of simulation wind speeds for Case B (Cape Canaveral)

shown in Figure 9. As can be seen, the mixed probability distribution function is a combination of the
distribution functions for the local and hurricane winds. The relative contribution of the local wind
speed risk profile is significant here due to its dominance of the risk profile. The probability
distribution function for the simulated wind speeds for Case B is shown in Figure 10. In this case, the

Figure 9. Probability distribution function for the maximum wind speed in 50-year design life for Case A

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
22 A. JAIN, M. SRINIVASAN AND G. C. HART

Figure 10. Probability distribution function for the maximum wind speed in 50-year design life for Case B (Cape
Canaveral)

Figure 11. Positive (inward) pressures (psf)—southeast elevation (Case A)

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
 EXTREME WIND LOADS DESIGN 23

high risk from the hurricane winds causes the mixed distribution risk profile to be dominated by the
hurricane wind risk profile.

10. DESIGN WIND SPEEDS

Table VII gives the design wind speeds for the four performance based design hazard levels given in
Table I. The wind speeds in Table VII are derived from the statistical analysis of local extreme wind
speed data at the building site only. The effect of the inclusion of the mixed distribution analysis on the
design wind speeds for Cases A and B can be best understood through Tables VIII and IX,
respectively.
Variations in local wind speed over different return periods are smaller compared with those of
hurricane wind speeds. The wide range of hurricane wind speeds is due to the uncertainty in
quantifying these wind speeds and the lack of relevant data. It is noted from Table VIII and IX that as
the return period increases the mixed distribution wind speeds are completely dominated by hurricane
wind speeds. There are several other points worth noting from the results in Tables VIII and IX.

Case A illustrates the fallacy of using only the local winds to compute the design wind speed. The
50-year return period wind speed from the mixed distribution (75 mph) is 10 per cent higher than the

Table X. 50-Year wind design floor forces—wind from Southeast

(Case A)

Floor Fx (kips) Fy (kips) Mz (kip ft)

30 0
68 4
11 5
76

29 5
60 13
25 21
90
28 20
17 23
55 393
00
27 19
81 20
56 393
00
26 18
92 19
85 380
33
25 17
99 19
07 365
34
24 17
02 18
24 349
21
23 16
12 17
46 333
07
22 15
18 16
62 315
79
21 14
13 15
66 293
89
20 13
07 14
68 271
99
19 11
99 13
70 250
09
18 15
16 16
64 494
42
17 14
11 15
82 485
20
16 12
82 14
84 454
09
15 11
56 13
85 421
82
14 10
33 12
87 389
55
13 9
13 11
89 356
12
12 7
93 10
88 320
40
11 6
78 9
90 285
82
10 5
64 8
90 247
79
9 5
21 9
07 306
57
8 4
34 8
17 268
53
7 3
52 7
03 227
04
6 2
75 5
91 187
86
5 2
04 4
79 147
52
4 1
41 3
64 107
18
3 0
85 2
45 69
15
2 0
36 1
15 32
27

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
24 A. JAIN, M. SRINIVASAN AND G. C. HART

wind speed from local winds only (68 mph) resulting in a 21 per cent average increase in the forces on
the building and the glass and cladding pressures. This is seen in Figure 11 for positive pressures. The
building floor forces for the 50-year return period mixed distribution wind speed for Case A are listed
in Table X.
Case B illustrates the strong influence of the hurricane wind risk profile on the mixed distribution.
While this may be intuitive, it is worth noting that the 50-year design wind speed of 112 mph is still
less than the code prescribed values. A site specific wind study therefore still has economic benefits to
the building owner. The modified positive glass and cladding pressure on the southeast elevation of the
building for Case B is shown in Figure 12. The revised floor forces on the building for the mixed
distribution wind speeds for Case B are given in Table XI.
For both Case A and Case B, the use of only local wind speed data to compute the 50-year design
wind speed as part of a site-specific wind study will yield erroneous results (the degree of error
corresponding to the hurricane risk profile dominance).
The aim of any performance based design procedure is to achieve a design that has predictable
performance for a specified level of loading. The design life and performance criteria, e.g. wind-
induced motion perception, drift limits, etc., are either code mandated depending on the importance of
the structure or more stringent levels that may sometimes be required by the building owner. The
establishment of mixed distribution wind speeds for different return periods will assist in the
development of performance levels that are within prescribed limits.

Figure 12. Positive (intward) pressures (psf)—southeast elevation (Case B)

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
 EXTREME WIND LOADS DESIGN 25

Table XI. 50 year wind design floor forces—wind from southeast

(Case B)

Floor Fx (kips) Fy (kips) Mz (kip ft)

30 1
60 9
68 13
56

29 13
18 31
20 51
54
28 47
47 55
42 925
07
27 46
63 48
40 925
07
26 44
54 46
71 895
22
25 42
35 44
90 859
96
24 40
07 42
94 821
98
23 37
95 41
10 784
00
22 35
73 39
12 743
31
21 33
26 36
87 691
76
20 30
76 34
56 640
22
19 28
21 32
26 588
68
18 35
67 39
17 1163
79
17 33
20 37
25 1142
09
16 30
17 34
94 1068
84
15 27
21 32
61 992
89
14 24
31 30
30 916
93
13 21
49 28
00 838
26
12 18
66 25
61 754
16
11 15
95 23
30 672
78
10 13
27 20
94 583
25
9 12
26 21
35 721
61
8 10
23 19
23 632
08
7 8
27 16
55 534
42
6 6
48 13
92 442
19
5 4
80 11
29 347
24
4 3
31 8
57 252
29
3 2
01 5
78 162
77
2 0
84 2
71 75
96

CONCLUSIONS

The results for a wind tunnel study to measure the floor forces and glass and cladding pressure on a 30-
story building sited in San Francisco are presented. It was realized that code based design wind speeds
can often lead to conservative estimates of wind-induced forces on structures since they encompass
broad regions of the country. Performing a site-specific design wind speed investigation can often lead
to cost savings for the building owner. The probability based methodology used to determine site-
specific performance based design wind speeds for use in wind tunnel measurements is described. The
standard procedure for site-specific wind speed determination can be deficient for hurricane prone
regions. A Monte Carlo procedure to perform a probability based site-specific wind study in hurricane
prone regions of the United States to compute a mixed distribution design wind speed was also
discussed. The impact of these mixed distribution design wind speeds on the wind-induced forces on
the same 30-story building were studied to demonstrate the variation produced by inclusion of
hurricane wind speed data in the analysis. This was studied for two regions, one where local wind
phenomena dominate the climatology and the other for which hurricane winds dominate. Building
performance limits are code based and are often dictated by the importance of the structure.

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)
26 A. JAIN, M. SRINIVASAN AND G. C. HART

Knowledge of the probability based mixed distribution wind speeds for different return periods will
help to establish the performance levels a particular structural system will conform to and will assist
desginers to achieve prescribed performance objectives.

REFERENCES

ASCE Standard, American Society of Civil Engineers. 1995. Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other
Structures, ASCE 7–95. American Society of Civil Engineers. New York.
Cook NJ. 1985. The designer’s guide to wind loading of building structures, Part 1 and Part 2, Building Research
Establishment Report, Butterworths, London.
Neumann C. 1998. Tropical cyclone occurrence in the Hawaiian Islands with focus on Honolulu. Science
Applications International Corporation (SAIC), December.
Simiu E, Scanlan RH. 1996. Wind Effects on Structures, 3rd edn. Wiley: New York.

Copyright  2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Build. 10, 9–26 (2001)