Every year, the nation experiences many high wind events, including hurricanes and tornadoes, and significant straight-line winds in some years. These high wind events frequently damage buildings; that damage must either be repaired or the building demolished and re-built. The visual image this damage creates often makes owners of similar buildings wonder about the wind resistance of their own buildings (both residential and commercial). As a result, some owners seek expertise in determining the wind resistance of their buildings and look to retrofit the building with improved wind resistance.
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Author Archives : William L. Coulbourne, P.E., M. ASCE
William Coulbourne is a Structural Engineering consultant with Coulbourne Consulting, Churchton, MD.
Revised Component and Cladding (C&C) wind load provisions in ASCE 7-22, Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures, produce in most cases either the same or slightly lower pressures than would occur under the prior edition while also preserving the extensive wind tunnel testing basis of the ASCE 7-16 C&C wind provisions.
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Determining Components and Cladding Roof Design Pressures
Component and cladding (C&C) roof pressures changed significantly in ASCE 7-16, Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures. For flat roofs, the corner zones changed to an ‘L’ shape with zone widths based on the mean roof height and an additional edge zone was added. …
Those of you who have had an opportunity to work in jurisdictions that have adopted the 2015 International Building Code (IBC) should have noticed a significant change related to mandatory tornado shelters in a significant portion of the Central U.S. For areas that use the 2015 IBC, this new requirement will impact the majority of new school and emergency facility construction spanning as far north as central Minnesota, as far south as southern Mississippi, and stretching to western Pennsylvania in the east and western Texas to the west. This area is shown in Figure 1 and is where tornadoes with wind speeds of at least 250 mph have a history of occurrence. …
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