Hurricane Sandy: Design Considerations and Reliability of Resiliency of Elevated Buildings in New York City

This paper aims at delineating the various aspects of resilient design of single or multi-family houses subjected to extreme environmental loads with a focus on Hurricane Sandy in New York City area. Emphasis of the case study is on the design of resilient foundations. Due to proximity of the buildings to the profoundly deteriorating bulkheads at the shore line and potential risk of failure as a result of flooding, lateral stability of the structures is a significant aspect of the resilient design. In this paper, the approach taken to ensure resiliency of the foundations against lateral loads is discussed. Other design aspects such superstructure and foundation connection and roof framing design is briefly discussed. A reliability analysis method is adopted to assess the degree of resiliency of the structures against the same wind load as in Hurricane Sandy. Response surface method based on first order reliability method (FORM) is employed to compute the reliability index for soil friction angle and pile head rotational stiffness as stochastic variables. The analysis results ensure resiliency of the structures constructed based on current design.