Hurricane Wind Performance and Mitigation Strategies for Informally Constructed Houses in Puerto Rico
Publication: ASCE Inspire 2023
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the performance of wood-based informally constructed houses in Puerto Rico, where resource-limited communities are vulnerable to climate-related hazards including hurricanes. Informally constructed housing is potentially vulnerable to hurricane and earthquake events but with significant variation depending on housing characteristics. This paper assesses the hurricane performance of representative housing typologies through a component-based performance-based wind engineering assessment framework. Results show that strengthening the roof envelope and roof-to-wall connections is essential for increasing the resilience of informally constructed wood houses in Puerto Rico. These upgrades are feasible for many builders and households, but challenges related to cost, appropriate construction, and material availability remain.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Amini, M. O., and van de Lindt, J. W. (2014). “Quantitative insight into rational tornado design wind speeds for residential wood-frame structures using fragility approach”. Journal of Structural Engineering, 140(7), 04014033.
ASCE. (2016). Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures, ASCE/SEI 7-16, Reston, VA.
Botzen, W. J., Deschenes, O., and Sanders, M. (2019). The Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters: A Review of Models and Empirical Studies. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 13, 167–188.
Cruzado, H. J., and Pacheco-Crosetti, G. E. (2018). “General overview and case studies of damages in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria”. In Forensic Engineering 2018: Forging Forensic Frontiers (pp. 986–996). Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers.
Ellingwood, B. R., Rosowsky, D. V., Li, Y., and Kim, J. H. (2004). “Fragility assessment of light-frame wood construction subjected to wind and earthquake hazards.” J. Struct. Eng., https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9445(2004)130:12(1921), 1921–1930.
Enterprise Community Partners. (2019). “Keep safe: A guide for resilient housing design in island communities.” Accessed March 25, 2020.https://www.enterprisecommunity.org/resources/keep-safe-guide-resilient-housing-design-island-communities.
Goldwyn, B., Javernick-Will, A., and Liel, A. B. (2022). “Multi-hazard housing safety perceptions of those involved with housing construction in Puerto Rico”. Sustainability, 14(7), 3802.
Goldwyn, B., Velasquez, C., Javernick-Will, A., Liel, A. B., and Koschmann, M. (forthcoming). “Capacity-Building to Support Appropriate Hurricane Strap Use ”. Natural Hazards Review.
Hinojosa, J., and Meléndez, E. (2018). The Housing Crisis in Puerto Rico and the Impact of Hurricane Maria. Centro, 24.
Li, Y., and Ellingwood, B. R. (2009). “Framework for multihazard risk assessment and mitigation for wood-frame residential construction”. Journal of Structural Engineering, 135(2), 159–168.
Lochhead, M., Goldwyn, B., Venable, C., Liel, A. B., and Javernick-Will, A. (2022). “Assessment of hurricane wind performance and potential design modifications for informally constructed housing in Puerto Rico”. Natural Hazards, 112(2), 1165–1189.
Mudd, L., Wang, Y., Letchford, C., and Rosowsky, D. (2014). “Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on the US East Coast Hurricane Hazard: Wind and Rain”. In Structures Congress 2014 (pp. 1426–1436).
Opdyke, A., Goldwyn, B., and Javernick-Will, A. (2021). “Defining a humanitarian shelter and settlements research agenda”. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 52, 101950.
Parrack, C., Flinn, B., and Passey, M. (2014). “Getting the Message Across for Safer Self-Recovery in Post-Disaster Shelter”, Open House International, Vol. 39 No. 3, pp. 47–58.
Peacock, W. G., Dash, N., Zhang, Y., and Van Zandt, S. (2018). “Post-disaster sheltering, temporary housing and permanent housing recovery”. Handbook of Disaster Research, 569–594.
The Saffir-Simpson Team. (2019). The Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. National Hurricane Center. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/sshws.pdf.
Stewart, M. G., Ryan, P. C., Henderson, D. J., and Ginger, J. D. (2016). “Fragility analysis of roof damage to industrial buildings subject to extreme wind loading in non-cyclonic regions”. Engineering Structures, 128, 333–343.
Stewart, M. G., Ginger, J. D., Henderson, D. J., and Ryan, P. C. (2018). “Fragility and climate impact assessment of contemporary housing roof sheeting failure due to extreme wind”. Engineering Structures, 171, 464–475.
Stoner, M., and Pang, W. (2020). “Simulated performance of cross-laminated timber residential structures subject to tornadoes”. Frontiers in Built Environment, 6, 88.
Van de Lindt, J. W., and Dao, T. N. (2009). “Performance-based wind engineering for wood-frame buildings”. Journal of Structural Engineering, 135(2), 169–177.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
ASCE Inspire 2023
Pages: 312 - 320
History
Published online: Nov 14, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Buildings
- Business management
- Construction (by type)
- Construction engineering
- Disaster risk management
- Disasters and hazards
- Housing
- Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones
- Infrastructure
- Infrastructure vulnerability
- Mitigation and remediation
- Natural disasters
- Practice and Profession
- Residential buildings
- Structural engineering
- Structures (by type)
- Urban and regional development
- Wind engineering
- Wood construction
- Wood structures
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.