Cross-Border Wind Engineering Contributions: ASCE 7 — A Case-in-Point

Canadian researchers in the area of wind engineering have been members of the ASCE 7 Task Committee on Wind Loads since its inception. This close collaboration among engineers across the border has helped establishing strongly shared research knowledge apparent in its application to the development and evolution of wind load provisions in ASCE 7, one of the most comprehensive wind standards in the world with 100 pages in its current version. The Task Committee is presently working towards the development of ASCE 7-10 updating the provisions of ASCE 7-05. The work of the Committee has been extremely important since ASCE 7, although a standard on its own, seems to have evolved to a "unified" code since other codes in the U.S. explicitly refer to and follow its provisions. The paper will glance at a number of issues the Committee is working at present and will concentrate on some issues that will eventually be addressed by the Committee. Research work relevant to current wind provisions and difficulties with the interpretation of others are the main forces motivating these changes. However, since this paper refers only to work in progress, a strong disclaimer regarding the final outcome of deliberations and voted decisions about changes in the wind load provisions of Chapter 6 is in order.