Perfomance-based wind engineering assessment of critical telecommunication infrastructure subjected to bora wind

Abstract

Wind phenomena present significant societal risks in many regions of the world due to, among others, economic losses resulting from damages to the built environment, discomfort to people, and disturbances in marine, air, and road traffic. These risks have motivated the development of performance-based design methodologies to support the decision makers in making rational and optimal measures to mitigate those risks. This paper investigates the application of the Performance-Based Wind Engineering (PBWE) methodology to the risk assessment to the critical telecommunication infrastructure subjected to wind hazard. Motivated by failures of telecommunication infrastructure due to wind load, the focus of the study is on the implementation of the PBWE methodology to estimate the expected annual losses to typical lattice frame steel telecommunication towers subjected to the Bora wind along the Croatian coastline. The statistical description of the wind hazards is based on long-term meteorological measurements available at several locations to capture the local variations characteristic for the Bora wind. The uncertainties in the wind hazard and the structural parameters were propagated to the structural response (e.g., displacements, internal forces) through a set of Monte Carlo analyses. The analyses provided a basis to estimate the probabilities of exceeding the serviceability and ultimate limit states. The resulting probabilities were used as an input to the loss function that evaluates risks from the wind hazard. The risk estimates provide valuable information to the stakeholders and decision makers that enable improved strategies for managing risks from wind hazard.