Reducing Extreme Flooding Loads on Essential Facilities via Elevated Structures
Publication: Lifelines 2022
ABSTRACT
Recent extreme coastal flooding caused by hurricanes [e.g., Hurricane Ike (2008) and Sandy (2012)] led to extreme devastation and damage to buildings and critical infrastructure. Typical construction practices for coastal residences in the Gulf of Mexico and on the East Coast involve the use of piles or columns in order to elevate the main living area above the expected inundation level. Such elevated structures can be very effective for extreme events below the design level, since they can be designed to avoid the impact with the waves; however, it is unknown what the structural performance will be during beyond-the-design events. Given the important role of essential facilities, such as healthcare facilities and emergency operation centers, especially during and after the occurrence of natural disasters, this paper investigates the effectiveness of elevating the bottom floor of a simplified structure in reducing the hurricane-induced loads. An extensive numerical investigation was conducted utilizing a FEM-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver and this manuscript will present preliminary results that give an insight into the expected loads. A typical three-story building was simulated in two configurations: (a) supported directly on the soil, and (b) elevated on three-meter tall columns. Following the validation of the numerical method with experimental data and the determination of the optimal numerical settings, a parametric study was conducted for several storm surge levels and solitary wave heights. The study included cases where either the storm surge or the waves reached the bottom slab of the elevated building, in order to account for future sea level rise and intensified hurricane events. The CFD analyses revealed that elevating the structure reduces the horizontal hydrodynamic forces as expected. However, the uplift forces are large especially for the scenarios where it is assumed that part of the 1st story is already inundated by the storm surge and the waves are slamming on the bottom slab of the elevated structure. Moreover, significant overturning moment (OTM) is also generated, which together with the simultaneously large hydrodynamic uplift could introduce significant demand in individual structural components, such as columns, foundations, and piles, and lead to global failure of the building. Given the complexity of the hydrodynamic loading and the observed structural vulnerability in recent coastal events, the results of this study are expected to be of interest to the research community, as well as structural engineers, building owners or disaster response planners that wish to improve the resilience of critical essential facilities on the coast.
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Lifelines 2022
Pages: 755 - 766
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Published online: Nov 16, 2022
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