Ml. Porterfield et Np. Jones, The development of a field measurement instrumentation system for low-riseconstruction, WIND STRUCT, 4(3), 2001, pp. 247-260
In the last three decades several comprehensive field measurement programs
have produced significant insight into the wind effects on low-rise structu
res. The most notable and well published of these efforts are measurements
being collected at the Wind Engineering Field Laboratory (WERFL) at Texas T
ech University, measurements on low-rise structures in Silsoe, England and
measurements on groups of low-rise structures collected in Aylesbury, Engla
nd. Complementary to these efforts, an additional full-scale field investig
ation program has recently collected meteorological, pressure, strain and d
isplacement data on a low-rise structure in Southern Shores, North Carolina
. To date over seventy-five hundred data sets have been collected at the So
uthern Shores site in a variety meteorological conditions up to and includi
ng hurricane-force winds. This paper provides details of the system, its de
velopment, and preliminary assessment of its performance. A description of
the field site, the instrumented structure, and the instrumentation system
is provided. In addition, an example of the data collected during three hur
ricanes is presented. The primary goal of this paper is to provide the read
er with the necessary technical details to appropriately interpret data fro
m this experiment, which will be presented in future publications currently
under development.