Development of methods for assessing the vulnerability of Australian residential building stock to severe wind

Conference Publication ResearchOnline@JCU
Wehner, Martin;Ginger, John;Holmes, John;Sandland, Carl;Edwards, Mark
Abstract

Knowledge of the degree of damage to residential structures expected from severe wind is used to study the benefits from adaptation strategies developed in response to expected changes in wind severity due to climate change. This study will inform government, the insurance industry and provide emergency services with estimates of expected damage. A series of heuristic wind vulnerability curves for Australian residential structures has been developed. In order to provide rigor to the heuristic curves and to enable quantitative assessment to be made of adaptation strategies, work has commenced to produce a simulation tool to quantitatively assess damage to buildings from severe wind. The simulation tool accounts for variability in wind profile, shielding, structural strength, pressure coefficients, building orientation, component self weights, debris damage and water ingress via a Monte Carlo approach. The software takes a component-based approach to modelling building vulnerability. It is based on the premise that overall building damage is strongly related to the failure of key components (i.e. connections). If these failures can be ascertained, and associated damage from debris and water penetration reliably estimated, scenarios of complete building damage can be assessed. This approach has been developed with varying degrees of rigor by researchers around the world and is best practice for the insurance industry.

Journal

IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science

Publication Name

17th National Conference of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanorgraphic Society

Volume

11

ISBN/ISSN

1755-1315

Edition

N/A

Issue

N/A

Pages Count

6

Location

Canberra, ACT, Australia

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Publisher Url

N/A

Publisher Location

Bristol, UK

Publish Date

N/A

Url

N/A

Date

N/A

EISSN

N/A

DOI

10.1088/1755-1315/11/1/012017