Dynamic response of structures to thunderstorm winds

A study of the dynamic response of structure to different types of wind is reported in this paper. Response to large-scale (monsoon wind) and small-scale winds (thunderstorm) of a SDOF structure is investigated. The monsoon wind is observed to be relatively stationary, and structure response predicted by the gust response factor (GRF) method is reasonably accurate. However, for thunderstorm events, the wind processes are observed to be non-stationary, and predictions using GRF method very much under-estimate the actual response. A modification to the GRF method is proposed for thunderstorm winds whereby a running-mean procedure is introduced. The fluctuation about the running-mean is observed to be more stationary. The result obtained from the running-mean GRF method is more accurate. For the thunderstorm events studied, the best predictions are obtained for a running-mean period of around 60 s.