NUMERICAL METHOD TO QUANTIFY WIND AND WIND-DRIVEN RAIN EFFECTS ON BUILDINGS WITH CONSIDERATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

Abstract

The primary factor contributing to the interior damage caused by tropical cyclones is rainwater infiltration through pre-existing structural faults or wind-induced breaches that occurred during the storm. With the effects of climate change, wind events have been determined to change in frequency and intensity in the coming decades. These findings concern how future extreme environmental loads should be addressed in the design and construction of buildings and other structures. Given the considerable uncertainty in projecting future conditions, there is a need to develop a robust framework that can assess and quantify the consequences of climate change. This thesis presents a multidisciplinary framework for evaluating and analyzing the site-specific wind and wind-driven rain impacts influenced by climate change. A case study is performed on a multistory building to investigate the applicability of the proposed framework by applying computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations performed on a building assumed to be in the Miami area to assess its performance during Hurricane Irma 2017 and anticipated wind and change precipitation conditions. The multidisciplinary framework for quantifying the impacts of climate change aims to provide knowledge that can be put to use during the design stage for tropical cyclones.