Seminario 3: THUNDERSTORM LOADING AND RESPONSE OF STRUCTURES

Este seminario será dictado el 8 de diciembre, 18:00-20:00 horas, en el salón de posgrados del IMFIA

Abstract:

This seminar provides a synthesis and the main results of the research carried out at the University of Genoa on thunderstorm monitoring, modelling, response and loading of structures.

Thunderstorm detection is carried out by the monitoring network realized for the European projects “Wind and Ports” and “Wind, Ports and Sea” in the Northern Tyrrhenian area. The measured data are transferred to a central server that stores the raw data and their statistical values into a central dataset. A procedure has been implemented to separate different intense wind events.

Each thunderstorm velocity record is decomposed into the sum of its slowly-varying mean part plus a residual fluctuation given by the product of its time-varying standard deviation by a random stationary standardised Gaussian signal. The main parameters of each record are collected and statistically analysed to establish a realistic parameterized thunderstorm model.

The structural response to thunderstorms is evaluated through an evolution of the response spectrum technique widely diffused in the seismic sector. This technique is first developed for single-degree of freedom systems subjected to perfectly coherent wind fields, then it is extended to multi-degree of freedom systems subjected to partially coherent wind fields.

The response spectrum technique is embedded into the independent wind loading technique. In place of the classical unique wind loading condition that joins different wind phenomena by mixed statistics, it gives rise to as many independent wind loading conditions as the wind phenomena that characterize the mixed climate, first of all synoptic and thunderstorm events.