Reliability analysis of a microwave tower for fluctuating mean wind with directional effect R. Deoliya’, T.K. Datta?* ‘Siracrrl Engincerng Research Cone Post Bag 1, Oziabad UP lio “oeparmen of Chat Brgncing, Ino ate of ecole Hone Khas, Ne Delt O16 Do Received 18 June 1998; acopted 18 August 1999 Abstract ‘The reliability analysis of a 75 m tall tel lattice tower is presented forthe annual variation of mean wind velocity taken as fa also conducted in order to investigate the eee o both msn wind speed and diseetion. A parametric st of rent important parameters ‘on the eomponent and system reliability of the tower. Variation ef the mean wind velocity is determined from the continnous records ofthe hourly mean wind speed and the hourly mean values ofthe twa eomponents of the wind volooty, Annu! probability of ma num response ‘ofa component of the tower exeveding a threshold level is determined as the mean nustber of erasing per day of the velocity vector out of the sate tesistanee bound: uriaee defined a3 a function of mean wind speed and drcetion. Using the above method of analysis, reliabil 1 allowable sess Lallue of ertical members of the tower and the consequent. system telisbilty ate determined for 2 aumber of parametric vaviations. [Lis shown thatthe probability of faire of the towcr increases with the increase inthe standard deviation of mean wind speed. the zer0 cts: rae and the carrolation coefficient between the velacitios inthe exe directions, Further, the variation of the probability of luce is ound fo be seasitive tothe variation of the above paronteters in the lower range of the threshold levels of stresses. Kerworde Microwave tosers; Relisbili System eiability; lactating meso wind; Directional effet Fir order second moment tbo 1. Introduction ‘Wind load on most structures varies with the wind direc tion, Consequently, the effect of wind direction becomes an important factor for consideration in the study of the response and design of structures under winds, When the ‘wind direction has to be considered. the use of annual rani- mum wind speed in the reliability analysis becomes questionable. Lis obvious that the annual maim wind may come from a direction, which may cause less severe effects than a wind of a lower intensity, but from a direction to which the structure is most vulnerable. In practice, a commonly used procedure is to assume that the wind comes from a direction which would cause the most serious effect i the structure, ic. the “worst direction” assumption If the structural resistance is direction independent. the wind speed can be modelled as a scalar process. The reliability is then simply defined as that the resistance is not exceeded by the force corresponding to the maxirmum wind speed over a given period. In that case, the reliability analysis requires the determination of the distribution of the mainmum wind, speed However, if the structural resistance 1s direction dependent, it is necessary 10 treat the two horizontal components of the wind velocity as a vector quantity So far as the usual design of Antenna towers for wind fotces is concetned, it consists of: (a) estimating a design swind speed for a given period; (b) evaluating gust factor; and (6) perfonming a static analysis for wind forces calcu- lated with the help of the design speed and the gust factor ‘The reliability of the design is considered by selecting the design wind speed (ommual maxinmum wind) for an assumed selum period, The ditectional effect of the mean wind is not taken into account in the reliability of the design Futther, the variation of mean wind speed over a year is not consid- cred in establishing the reliability of the design. In regions where the fhictuation of mean wind speed over a year 1s significant, the effect of this variation should be taken into the actual reliability estimate of the tower (which may significantly differ from the reliability incorporated throwgh, the “return period design concept’). For very tall antenna towers, reliability estimate of the design for wind forces should duly consider both component and system reliabilities. Many critical and importantase ‘members of the fower should have am adequate retiability index not only from the point of safety. but also from the point of serviceability. Ths, in regions of high wind speed itis important o carry out a detailed relibility analysis of tall antenna towers for wind forces by considering the variation of mean wind speed and is ditection over a year ‘The response ofa structure to varying mean wind speed is generally quasi static in nature since the structue’s frequency is normally outside the frequency range of the power spectral density function (psdf) of the mean wind speed. Becanse the response is time dependent, the reliabil- ity analysis can be posed as a problem of probability of outcrossing the resistance boundary of the elements of the structure. When directionality of the mean wind speed is considered, the reliability is then defined as the direction dependent resistance boundary not being outcrossed by the mean velocity (vector) process over a given period of time, Davenport [1] studied the effect of wind direction based on an outcrossing analysis and reported a significant reduction in response level forthe direction sensitive struce tures. Simi and Filliben [2] studied wind direction effects ‘on wind loads and conciuded that the worst direction approach may over estimate by a factor of two or more. Wen [3] examined the direction effect on structural reliability and reached similar conclusions. In the above studies. a simplified mode! of structure was considered so at dhe resistance boundary could be determined using closed form expressions. In real life structures like antenna towers. the determination of the resistance boundary is quite involved and computationally intensive. Consequently, the application of the above concepts for the determination of the component and system reliabilities of such structures has, not been widely reported. In this paper, a reliability analysis is presented for the microwave antenna towers for the variable mean wind speed. The effect of the variability of the direction of ‘tnean wind speed is duly considered in the analysis. The component relibility is obtained by finding the probability of outcrossing the direction-dependent resistance boundary of the elements of the tower. The method of analysis is, applied to obtain both component and system reliability of 275 m tall microwave antenna tower, A parametric study is also conducted to investigate the effect of the characteristics of the mean wind speed on the reliability estimate of the tower, The wind characteristics include the vanability of the mean wind speed and its components, correlation coefi- cient and the crossing rate of mean wind speed. The results of the parametric study are expected to throw an insight into the statistical characteristics of the wind that should be considered for carrying out such reliabligy analysis ‘The paper is presented in different sections. Section 2 femumerates the assumptions made for performing. out- crossing analysis for wind vibration of structure. Section 3 presents the method of outcrossing analysis for obtaining, the reliability of structural elements for mean wind force, Section 4 discusses the wind data required for the analysis. Section 5 describes the method forthe determination of the resistance boundary of the members of the tower as a function of mean wind yelocity and its direction. Section 6 presenis the method for the computation of system reliability of the tower. Section 7 presents the results of rmumerical study on a 75 m tall antenna tower and discusses the effect of important wind parameters on reliability indices, Section © sumnmanses the contribution of the present study 2, Assumptions Inotder to make the problem mathematically amenable to the outcrossing analysis and to perform a random vibration analysis of the sttuciure. the following assumptions are ‘made in the study: (i) material strength is assumed to be etemministic: (i) the “one minute” mean wind speed is a stationary Gaussian process; (iii) two components of the mean wind velocity are also considered asa Gaussian process. and (iv) the wind direction is assumed to follow a bivariate Gaussian distribution in polar coordinates. 3. Outerossing analysis for wind vibration of structures ‘The concept of outcrossing analysis follows the principles cof random vibration analysis and the probability of theory ‘The elements of the outcrossing analysis, as applied forthe reliability analysis of structures under wind vibrations are ‘suuunarised in the following paragraphs. Considera structure whose resistance against lateral load is directional dependent. A resistance boundary is defined as threshold wind speed having a direction (0) beyond which, the limit state of the simcture couki be reached The two horizontal components ofthe wind velocity are modelled as vector processes. Rigorous solution of the reliability problem requires a first excursion probability analysis that is extremely difficult, However, an approximate analysis based on Poisson process assumption may be catried out ‘with reasonable accuracy. The probability of failure is then defined as Peale a where Py is the probability that failure occurs in a time pend, T(@ <5 T); Tis the duration under consideration (365 days), and vis the mean failure rate, The problem of obtaining the annual probability of failure of a component of the structure having a resistance threshold level R is then reduced to finding a valuc 1p. For this purpose, resistance boundary fora strucraral member is defined withthe help of BRO) @ where I” is the mean wind speed. with direction of angle # with respect to a reference axis, required fo produce a tdreshold level of stress ® in the member. Based on Rice's, [4] scalar upcrossing analysis and assuming the velocity tobe a Ganssian vector process, t can be shown that [>] meena AU ae @) in which Fis the norial to the resistance boundary # and 7’, is assumed independent of F rp is the mean outcrossing rate, J, (F is the probability density function of the variate v Introducing the polar coordinates to define wind speed. ie ‘The resistance boundary for specified stress banter level is then defined as vem aby Using Eqs. (a) and (4b), Eq. G) can be reduced to [3] naval f [ee] av, = tan a) in which fe, is joim density function of Vand 6 Recognising that [1] EU 1= ayn and 0, = 0 © Eq. (5) can be wniten as w= moves, [han ako o in which Le we 8) ‘The wind climate parameters required in the theoretical calculation of vo, therefore, are the cyclic rate of wind speed (0), Standard deviation of wind speed (7), joint density function of wind speed and direction (f.) Since the ‘wo components of the wind velocity are modelled as Gaussian processes, at any arbitrary point in time wind speed 1” and wind direction @ follow a bivariate Gaussian distribution m potar coordinates 0 r - 2 - +( ne mY ap,(ere “) in which py, is the corelation coefficient between velocity 20 components in ¥ and ¥ directions, p.. and pare the mean values of the fluctuating mean wind velocities in. and F directions. oy and gy are the corresponding standard deviations, respectively, 4. Wind climatic data required for the analysis ‘The wind climatic parameters required for the analysis described before are to be determined from the long term ‘wind measurement data consisting of time history records of ‘mean wind speed and mean wind velocity components in. and Y directions. Ideally, sufficient long. records. are required, However, for practical computational pumposes, several segments of the wind records forming an ensemble may be used From tie ensemble of records, the psd of ‘mean wind speed and the psdf of two velocity components are determined using standard procedures [8]. From the areas under the curves of the psd functions, the standard deviations (0, cand o,) are determined. #4, fy and py are obtatned from the time history records and. 15 determined from Eq. (8) 5, Determination of resistance boundary of the members of the tower’ For determining the resistance boundary, the tower is analysed for static mean wind velocity V blowing at an angle @ with respect fo the principal directions (X and 1) of the tower shown in Fig. 1. For this purpose, a load vector 4s generated in the wind direction for a given wind speed st the reference height. Variation of the wind speed along the Insight ofthe tower is assumed to follow the power law. The wind loads are calculated using Indian Standard-code provisions [9] in which overall drag coefficient depends on the solidity ratio. The solidity ratio is defined as the effective area of the tower frame normal o the wind direc- tion divided by the area enclosed by the boundary of the frame normal to the wind direction. For the parpose of wind Toad calculation. the tower is divided inlo 1 number of divisions, each division comprising of heights £' and £" below and above a level of joint as shown in Fig 2, For each such division, the solidity ratio is calculated and at appropriate value of the drag cvefficient Ci, is obtained. Total wind force acting at the ith level is given by Pye pled? «oy where Ps the tolal wind foroes acting atthe ith level: Cys the drag coefficient which depends on the solidity ratio of the tower for the ith division, 7 is the average mean wind velocity over the length /, concentrated at the ith level and Au the effective lumped area forthe ith division given by Ay = ¥ diy. where aly is the respective area of individual ‘member to be lumped at the th level. The total wind force is equally divided imo the four nodes acting along the wind direction.