Extreme Wind Load Estimates Based on Gumbel Distribution of Dynamic Pressures: An Assessment.
Extreme Wind Load Estimates Based on Gumbel Distribution
of Dynamic Pressures: An Assessment.
(1412 K)
Simiu, E.; Heckert, N. A.; Filliben, J. J.; Johnson, S.
K.
Structural Safety, Vol. 23, No. 3, 221-228, 2001.
Keywords:
wind engineering; wind forces; extreme value statistics;
wind velocity; structural engineering
Abstract:
We present a contribution to the current debate on
whether it is more appropriate to fit a Gumbel
distribution to the time series of the extreme dynamic
pressures (i.e. of the squares of the extreme wind
speeds) than to fit an extreme value distribution to the
time series of the extreme wind speeds themselves. It
has been shown that the use of time series of the
extreme dynamic pressures would be justified if the time
series of the wind speed data taken at small intervals
(e.g. 1 h) were, at least approximately,
Rayleigh-distributed. We show that, according to sets of
data we believe are typical, this is not the case. In
addition, we show results of probability plot
correlation coefficient (PPCC) analyses of 100 records
of sample size 23 to 54, according to which the fit of
reverse Weibull distributions to largest yearly wind
speeds is considerably better than the fit of Gumbel
distributions to the corresponding largest yearly
dynamic pressures. We interpret the data and results
presented in the paper as indicating that there is no
convincing support to date for the hypothesis that the
Gumbel distribution should be used as a model of extreme
dynamic pressures.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899