Contents

Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................. viii

1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 1
2 Background ........................................................................................................................................... 3
2.1 Concepts .......................................................................................................................................... 3
2.1.1 Nature of wind and regional wind speeds .................................................................................. 3
2.1.1.1 Main characteristics of severe wind in Australia ................................................................... 3
2.1.2 Brief description of wind multipliers ............................................................................................ 4
2.2 Applications...................................................................................................................................... 6
2.3 Wind loading Standards/Codes ....................................................................................................... 7
2.3.1 Overview of major wind loading standards in the world ............................................................. 7
2.3.1.1 ISO 4354: 2009..................................................................................................................... 7
2.3.1.2 Eurocode 1, EN 1991-1-4 ..................................................................................................... 7
2.3.1.3 ASCE Standard ASCE 7-10 Minimum design loads for buildings and other
structures .......................................................................................................................................... 8
2.3.1.4 AIJ Recommendations for loads on buildings ...................................................................... 8
2.3.1.5 Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 1170.2.............................................................. 8
2.3.2 Regional or basic wind speeds .................................................................................................. 9
2.3.3 Wind multipliers ........................................................................................................................ 11
2.3.3.1 Terrain/height multiplier ...................................................................................................... 11
2.3.3.2 Shielding multiplier.............................................................................................................. 14
2.3.3.3 Topographic multiplier ........................................................................................................ 14
3 Wind multiplier computational methodology........................................................................................ 15
3.1 Wind Direction Multiplier (Md) ........................................................................................................ 16
3.2 Terrain/Height Multiplier (Mz,cat) ..................................................................................................... 17
3.2.1 Terrain classes ......................................................................................................................... 17
3.2.2 Terrain categories .................................................................................................................... 18
3.2.3 Derivation of terrain multipliers................................................................................................. 21
3.2.4 Derivation of directional terrain multipliers ............................................................................... 22
3.3 Shielding Multiplier (Ms) ................................................................................................................. 23
3.3.1 Assignment of initial shielding factors ...................................................................................... 23
3.3.2 Derivation of directional shielding factors ................................................................................ 24
3.3.3 Adjust shielding multiplier for the effects of ground slope ........................................................ 25
3.3.4 Adjust the conservatism in AS/NZS 1170.2 ............................................................................. 25
3.4 Topographic Multiplier (Mt) ............................................................................................................ 26
3.4.1 Mt formulae from AS/NZS 1170.2 ............................................................................................ 26
3.4.2 Adjust Mt for the conservatism in AS/NZS 1170.2 ................................................................... 28
3.4.3 The impacts of removing conservatism from shielding and topographic multiplier ................. 28
3.4.4 DEMs ........................................................................................................................................ 28
3.5 Example calculation (site gust wind speed at point location) ........................................................ 29
4 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 31

Local Wind Assessment in Australia: Computation Methodology for Wind Multipliers iii