Fall 2020 Structures Graduate Student Seminar (SGSS)

Date/Time

10/14/2020
9:35 am-11:00 am
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Zoom Meeting: https://ufl.zoom.us/j/92570005075
Meeting ID: 925 7000 5075

Wind Loading of Structures during Transient Wind Storms
Speaker: Dr Matthew Mason
School of Civil Engineering
The University of Queensland, Australia

ABSTRACT: Most of the wind events that we design structures to resist – such as, hurricanes, downbursts or tornadoes – are not stationary with time. That is, they exhibit periods of either rapid flow acceleration, deceleration, or both. Despite this, general wind-resistant design practice is premised on the assumption that the wind loading a structure is statistically stationary. It appears, therefore, that there may be a disparity between what we are designing structures to resist and the actual wind loads they may experience during real wind events. This seminar will discuss a series of experiments carried out in the Transient Flow Wind Tunnel at the University of Queensland that sought to understand this problem in more detail. In particular, we have focused on trying to understand the role flow acceleration plays in defining the pressure loads on a low-rise building. We compare wind loads measured during steady flow conditions with those measured during periods of rapid flow acceleration and by linking these results back to measured accelerations during real wind events we draw some conclusions about the importance of flow acceleration in the overall context of wind loading of buildings.

BIO: Dr Mason is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Civil Engineering at The University of Queensland. His research expertise lies in the field of natural hazard engineering, where he has interests in a range of topics, including; catastrophe risk modelling (tropical cyclones, thunderstorms, floods), unsteady building aerodynamics, wind tunnel testing, boundary layer meteorology, observational meteorology and computational wind engineering. Dr Mason also has a strong interest in understanding and mitigating the impact of severe weather on the built environment through the application of advanced risk modelling and assessment tools. He is currently the Chairman of the Australasian Wind Engineering Society and serves on the committee that develops the wind loading standards for Australia and New Zealand.

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