Accumulation of wind induced damage on bilinear SDOF systems

The evaluation of the accumulation of permanent set for inelastic structures due to wind action is important in establishing a criterion to select a reduced design wind load and in incorporating the beneficial ductile behaviour in wind engineering. A parametric study of the accumulation of the permanent set as well as the ductility demand for bilinear single-degree-of- freedom (SDOF) systems is presented in the present study. The dynamic analysis of the inelastic SDOF system is carried out using the method of Newmark for artificially generated time history of wind speed. Simulation results indicate that the mean of the normalized damage rate is highly dependent on the natural frequency of vibration. This mean value is relatively insensitive to the damping ratio if the damping ratio is larger than 5%. The scatter associated with the accumulation of the permanent set is very significant. The consideration of the postyield stiffness can significantly reduce the accumulation of the permanent set if the ratio of the yield strength to the expected peak response is small. The results also show that the ductility demand due to the wind action over a period of one hour for flexible structures can be much less than that for rigid structures or structures with larger damping ratio if the SDOF systems are designed with a reduced peak response caused by the fluctuating wind.