Juan J. del Coz-Díaz

On the significance of the climate-dataset time resolution in characterising wind-driven rain and simultaneous wind pressure. Part II: directional analysis

Both semi-empirical methods and CFD simulations use real climate datasets as a basis for determining the building facade exposure to wind-driven rain and simultaneous wind pressure. The time resolution of these datasets and the number of variables considered (commonly rainfall intensity, wind speed and wind direction) determine the required calculation effort and the accuracy of the result. Omitting the wind direction, a former article (Part I of this research) has analysed the effect of this time resolution on two scalar exposure indices obtained by semi-empirical methods: driving rain index (aDRI) and driving-rain wind pressure (DRWP). However, the wind direction during precipitation events also causes significant exposure variations between possible facade orientations. Thus, it is also necessary to clarify the influence of the time resolution of the dataset, on the accuracy of the directional semi-empirical calculation of aDRI and DRWP. To meet this challenge, the article examines 10-min climate records collected between 2001 and 2016 at 6 Spanish locations, uses them to obtain hourly, daily, monthly and annual datasets, and analyses the accuracy of the directional exposure indices associated with each time resolution. The results show that a daily dataset would allow identifying the most exposed orientation with an error less than 45°. However, even the hourly datasets cause errors close to 10% in the exposure values identified on each facade orientation. Finally, adjustment relationships that allow estimating the maximum value of directional exposure from simple scalar indices are obtained.

New Bidirectional Heavy Device for Launching Bridges Based on Inverted Caterpillar Mechanism

The authors would like to acknowledge the help of the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness through the Research Project ALCANZA, IPT-380000-2010-012 INNPACTO program. Furthermore, the authors are grateful to project GRUPIN14-004, co-financed with FEDER funds.