The development of a field measurement instrumentation system for low-riseconstruction

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.