Field measurement and wind tunnel simulation of hurricane wind loads on a single family dwelling

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During landfall of Hurricane Ivan on the Florida ’panhandle’ in 2004, pressure time-history data were recorded on multiple pressure sensors installed on the roofs of six single-family homes. An analysis approach was developed to determine the peak negative, mean, peak positive, and standard deviation of pressure coefficients for these datasets. This paper presents a comparison of the full scale pressure coefficients from one of these homes, which experienced sustained hurricane force winds, with the results of wind tunnel experiments on a 1:50 scale model of that home. It was determined that the wind tunnel and full-scale mean and rms pressure coefficients matched very closely at almost every monitored location on the roof, while the peak negative pressure coefficients in the wind tunnel study generally underestimated the full-scale values, consistent with observations from previous full-scale/wind tunnel comparative studies. Field-measured hurricane wind loads may prove useful for evaluating existing wind load provisions. However, recommendations in that regard are premature without the analyses of multiple homes in multiple storms, performed by more than one wind tunnel facility. Future work will focus on building such a joint study.