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Fragility assessment of wood sheathing panels and roof-to-wall connections subjected to wind loading

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Abstract

The performance of the wood-frame buildings after tornadoes has shown that the majority of the wind damage resulted from building envelope failure most typically due to the loss of the roof. To assess the performance and the reliability of low-rise wood-frame residential buildings with a focus on the roofs, fragility analysis can be used to estimate the probability of failure of a roof when constructed with specified nails and sheathing sizes. Thus, this paper examines the fragility of specific types of nails, roof-to-wall (RW) connection details, and sheathing sizes based on the damaged roofs that were previously assessed in the Dunrobin area in Ottawa (Ontario) that was hit with an Enhanced Fujita (EF3) tornado on September 21, 2018. The presented fragility analysis considers four scenarios, including different sheathing and nail sizes. Dead loads, wind loads, and resistance on the sheathing panels were compiled and analyzed to determine the failure of the examined roofs. The eight fragility models suggest that the safest roof sheathing (RS) is the 1.22 m × 1.22 m sheathing panel with 8 d nails, and the safest RW connections is achieved by using H2.5 hurricane clips.

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Abbreviations

C :

structural capacity

C e :

exposure factor

C g :

gust effect factor

C p :

external pressure coefficient

C t :

topographic factor

D :

structural demand

Fr :

fragility function

I w :

importance factor

ln:

lognormal function

LS:

limit state

p f :

probability of failure

q :

reference velocity pressure

R C :

resistance of the nail/clip connection

R D :

resistance of the dead load of the connection

RS:

roof sheathing

R W :

resistance of the dead load on the roof panel

RW:

roof-to-wall

R 2 :

residual

S i :

inverse of cumulative distribution function (CDF) WL: wind force

W p :

wind pressure

IM :

intensity measure

x :

a vector of the random variables associated for the calculation of capacity and demand

λ :

slope of probability paper plot λR: lognormal median of capacity

ξ R :

lognormal standard deviation of capacity

ξ :

slope of probability paper plots

φ :

standard normal cumulative distribution

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Acknowledgements

The first and the second authors would like to thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada for the financial support provided through the grant: RGPIN-2017-04197 NSERC DG. Any findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the sponsor’s views.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, K7L 3N9, Canada

    Amira Gill & Aikaterini S. Genikomsou

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, L8S 4L7, Canada

    Georgios P. Balomenos

Authors
  1. Amira Gill
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  2. Aikaterini S. Genikomsou
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  3. Georgios P. Balomenos
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aikaterini S. Genikomsou.

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Gill, A., Genikomsou, A.S. & Balomenos, G.P. Fragility assessment of wood sheathing panels and roof-to-wall connections subjected to wind loading. Front. Struct. Civ. Eng. 15, 867–876 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11709-021-0745-5

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