Extreme Weather Impacts on the Condition and Service Life of Building Components

The impacts of extreme weather cause billions of dollars of damage each year to buildings and structures, and these costs continue to increase as climate patterns change and buildings are exposed to new and different hazards than what they were designed to withstand. For organizations with large building portfolios, such as the US Department of Defense (DoD), it is important to have an awareness of the risks that extreme weather presents when conducting strategic planning on the long-range sustainment, restoration, modernization, and eventual recapitalization of their building stock. The primary objective of this research is to develop a model to quantify the estimated condition loss and effective service life reduction to the components of a building due to extreme weather hazards, and use the results to communicate system level and facility level risks. To do this, a damage association matrix is defined, which links characteristic damage modes for a given climate hazard to building component types. The resulting condition loss as measured by a component condition index is associated to each damage mode, along with the likelihood that the damage mode materializes given the hazard occurrence. This is applied to an actual portfolio of buildings in a particular geographic location and with a pre-defined component inventory that comprises the building. A weather forecasting model is used to estimate hazard occurrence likelihood along with building location, component type, and age to adjust the expected service life. The approach uses findings at a component level to support building sustainment decisions related to individual component repair/replacement, as well as identifying potential mitigation activities to reduce damage extent or likelihood. These findings are also aggregated to a system or building level to support recapitalization decisions related to restoration/modernization or total building replacement.