Fuzzy-based wind damage model for single-family housing

Abstract

Residential construction is generally non-engineered and sustains the most damage of all the construction types in the event of a windstorm. With extensive development along the hurricane prone coastal areas, more and more residential property is exposed to hurricane risk. As a result, a probabilistic estimate of damage to these structures is crucial to the insurance industry.

In the present work of developing a wind damage model, the authors have proposed a methodology for damage prediction that takes into account both expert opinion and strength of components and connections in a building, as provided in the literature. A building is considered to be an aggregation of components and connections that are assembled together according to standard construction practices. The strength of each component and connection is represented by a suitable probability distribution. To account for the uncertainty in the strength, a probability distribution is represented by fuzzy membership functions. The effect of damage to the building envelope is included in the analysis by updating the wind load acting on components when the building envelope is breached. Expert opinion is used to establish the fraction of interior damaged given there is damage to any of the exterior components. A component exposure parameter, based on expert opinion, defines the maximum fraction of damage to a component at any given wind speed. These expert supplied parameters are represented by fuzzy membership functions to account for uncertainty in the expert judgment. A fuzzy model of building damage as a function of wind speed is then developed. .