Safety of Structures in Strong Winds and Earthquakes: Multihazard Considerations
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 3
Abstract
In accordance with the ASCE Standard 7-05, in regions subjected to wind and earthquakes, structures are designed for loads induced by wind and, separately, by earthquakes, and the final design is based on the more demanding of these two loading conditions. Implicit in this approach is the belief that the standard assures risks of exceedance of the specified limit states that are essentially identical to the risks inherent in the provisions for regions where only wind or earthquakes occur. We draw the attention of designers, code writers, and insurers to the fact that this belief is, in general, unwarranted, and that ASCE 7 provisions are not risk consistent, i.e., in regions with significant wind and seismic hazards, risks of exceedance of limit states can be up to twice as high as those for regions where one hazard dominates. This conclusion is valid even if the limit states due to wind and earthquake are defined differently, as is the case in ASCE 7. We propose an approach to modifying ASCE 7 provisions which guarantees that risks implicit in minimum ASCE 7 requirements for regions where one hazard dominates are not exceeded for structures in regions with strong wind and seismic hazards.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
We thank M. Grigoriu of Cornell University, P. Gould of the Washington University in St. Louis, H. S. Lew, J. Main, and F. Sadek of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and D. Veneziano of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for helpful comments. Eq. (3) and related material were kindly communicated by B. R. Ellingwood of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
References
ASCE. (2005). “Minimum design loads for buildings and other structures.” ASCE 7-05, Reston, Va.
Crosti, C., Duthinh, D., and Simiu, E. (2009). “Wind and seismic multi-hazard design of buildings.” CTA XXII Congress, Steel for a Sustainable Future.
Pearce, T. H., and Wen, Y. K. (1984). “Stochastic combinations of load effects.” J. Struct. Eng., 110(7), 1613–1629.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Sep 8, 2008
Accepted: Aug 14, 2009
Published online: Sep 18, 2009
Published in print: Mar 2010
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.