Gust Factor of the Alongwind Response of Structures Subjected to Thunderstorm Outflows

This study investigates the possibility of generalizing the well-established Davenport gust factor technique to the evaluation of the maximum alongwind dynamic response of single-degree-of-freedom systems to thunderstorm outflows. In particular, the sensitivity of the gust factor to the analytical model adopted for the modulating function defining the slowly-varying mean wind velocity is first assessed. Then, the intervals of variation of the parameters shaping the wind velocity (the intensity of the background wind and the duration of the intense phase) are obtained from the analysis of 129 full-scale thunderstorm records. Finally, the gust factor is analytically evaluated on varying said parameters and its sensitivity to such parameters is studied. Results show that the dependence of the gust factor on the intensity of the background wind and the duration of the intense phase is not negligible.