Modeling Nonstationary Non-Gaussian Hurricane Wind Velocity and Gust Factor
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 148, Issue 2
Abstract
This study estimated the wind gust factor and turbulence intensity for hurricane winds that are modeled as a nonstationary non-Gaussian process. The estimation considered the time-varying mean wind velocity, and the time–frequency decomposition using S-transform characterized the time-varying amplitude and frequency content of the fluctuating wind. Winds simulated by applying a newly developed algorithm were used to augment the sample size. Results indicate that the standardized power spectral density function of hurricane winds can be represented in terms of the reduced frequency but with time-varying mean wind velocity. The standardized fluctuating wind is only weakly non-Gaussian; the average skewness and kurtosis coefficients are not very sensitive to whether the 10-or 60-min time-varying mean wind speed is considered. The assessed relation between the gust factor and turbulence intensity indicates that such a relationship is influenced by whether the instantaneous aspect of the nonstationary process is considered. There is large uncertainty in the developed relationship. By removing samples associated with a low mean wind velocity, the largest value of the estimated gust factor decreases. The consideration of the non-Gaussian aspect of the fluctuating wind to estimate the gust factor could be important as turbulence intensity increases.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request. These include all the obtained samples of turbulence intensity and gust factors, and the estimated power spectral density function.
Acknowledgments
Financial support received from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2016-04814, for the second author), the University of Western Ontario, and the China Scholarship Council (No. 201807980004, for the first author) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank F. Masters for providing the wind hurricane wind records.
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Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 148 • Issue 2 • February 2022
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 25, 2021
Accepted: Sep 20, 2021
Published online: Nov 23, 2021
Published in print: Feb 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Apr 23, 2022
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