Probabilistic Assessment of Wind-Loaded Façade Elements

Abstract

Façade elements are the most vulnerable parts of buildings with respect to wind loading. In this paper it is assessed to what extent wind-loaded façade elements fulfill the minimum reliability requirements as set in the Eurocodes. The reliability analysis needed for this assessment should account for the uncertainties in each of the parameters relevant for design; both in the structural resistance part and in the wind-loading part. Additionally, the analysis needs to account for the uncertainties in the physical models as such. Until now, no generally applicable assessment procedure exists for this purpose. By combining the knowledge of existing literature, this paper provides a generally applicable assessment procedure that is able to determine the structural reliability of wind loaded façade elements in terms of the failure probability. The assessment procedure uses in-situ wind speed measurements obtained from meteorological stations and location-specific pressure coefficient measurements obtained from boundary-layer wind-tunnels. Wind-directionality effects are taken into account explicitly. In order to show its potential, the assessment procedure is applied on a case-study. The results show that, due to wind-directionality effects, the failure probability of the façade elements is highly dependent on the orientation of the building. Furthermore the results show that the failure probability is almost fully determined by the governing incident wind-directions only.