Search

Hurricanes can have adverse effects on residential communities and pose a significant risk to their economic prosperity. The ingress of water into a building due to wind-driven rain (WDR) and inland flooding can cause significant damage leading to downtime or temporary loss of housing. Existing frameworks focus on estimating the amount of water ingress due to WDR and inland flooding separately. This paper provides a comprehensive framework that considers both WDR and inland flooding when estimating the amount of water ingress into residential buildings due to hurricane rainfall. The framework estimates the water ingress due to WDR by combining the WDR intensity with the perforated area of the building envelopes. The intensity of the WDR is quantified using an Eulerian Multi-phase Model. The buildings' envelope is considered susceptible to damage from the impact of windborne debris and excessive dynamic wind pressure. The framework to characterize and quantify inland flooding uses a coupled hydrologic-hydrodynamic model to estimate the inundation depth at each building. A case study consisting of a residential community in Houston, TX, which is subject to Hurricane Harvey illustrates the ability of the framework to capture the influence of WDR and inland flooding when quantifying water ingress. • A framework is presented for building water ingress estimation due to hurricane rainfall. • Both wind driven rain and inland flooding are considered simultaneously. • Wind driven rain is modeled through an Eulerian multiphase model. • Inland flooding is estimated using a coupled hydrologic-hydrodynamic model. • The importance of both WDR and inland flooding when estimating losses is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hurricanes are one of the major causes of damage and loss to residential wooden buildings in the United States. The study of hurricane-imposed risks to residential wooden buildings is, therefore, a fundamental step to mitigate these damages and losses. Within this context, a probabilistic methodology is provided for the fragility analysis of residential wooden buildings. Two damage mechanisms are considered in this methodology, excessive dynamic wind pressure and impact from windborne debris. Unlike existing frameworks, the methodology defines the geometric configuration as well as the required extension of the neighboring buildings to estimate the damage from both mechanisms. A case study illustrates the methodology on residential communities composed of archetype gable-roof buildings. Ten construction cases are defined to cover a range of resistances of building components for both considered damage mechanisms. Three floor-area ratios (F A R) are also considered. The resulting fragility curves highlight: (1) the effect of the F A R on enhancing the performance of residential buildings due to the effect of shielding; and (2) the significance of windborne debris in increasing the estimated hurricane risk. The estimated fragility curves can be used to directly model residential buildings in community resilience frameworks. • A methodology for the risk and fragility analysis of wooden buildings is presented. • Damage from windborne debris is considered in the developed methodology. • Fragility curves for archetype gable-roof buildings are presented. • The significance of windborne debris and floor-area ratio are highlighted. • The estimated fragility curves can be used in community resilience frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]