A framework for estimating water ingress due to hurricane rainfall

Abstract

Hurricanes can have adverse effects on residential communities and pose a significant risk to their economic prosperity. The ingress of water into a building due to wind-driven rain (WDR) and inland flooding can cause significant damage leading to downtime or temporary loss of housing. Existing frameworks focus on estimating the amount of water ingress due to WDR and inland flooding separately. This paper provides a comprehensive framework that considers both WDR and inland flooding when estimating the amount of water ingress into residential buildings due to hurricane rainfall. The framework estimates the water ingress due to WDR by combining the WDR intensity with the perforated area of the building envelopes. The intensity of the WDR is quantified using an Eulerian Multi-phase Model. The buildings’ envelope is considered susceptible to damage from the impact of windborne debris and excessive dynamic wind pressure. The framework to characterize and quantify inland flooding uses a coupled hydrologic-hydrodynamic model to estimate the inundation depth at each building. A case study consisting of a residential community in Houston, TX, which is subject to Hurricane Harvey illustrates the ability of the framework to capture the influence of WDR and inland flooding when quantifying water ingress.