MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF QUADRATIC TERM IN THE WIND EFFECTS ON STRUCTURES

Historically, the quadratic drag term containing the square of the flu ctuating velocity component has been often ignored in analyses of wind -excited structures. This paper addresses a technique to model the con tribution of this term to the system response extremes. Among the topi cs covered are the development of st non-Gaussian gust loading factor via moment-based Hermite transformation. A frequency domain analysis a pproach involving Volterra theory and higher-order response cumulant c alculations from direct integrations or Kac-Siegert technique is emplo yed to obtain information needed for this transformation. (C) 1998 Pub lished by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.