Kurt Gurley, PhD
Associate Professor, Structures Group, University of Florida

Wind tunnel experiments to characterize wind loads on structures remains an important tool for design. For low-rise structures the design wind loads are prescriptive, and based on a handful of experiments on very simply shaped buildings. However, wind tunnel results can be very sensitive to a number of parameters specific to a given facility. Three wind tunnel facilities independently studied the wind loads on a scale-model house with a realistic complex roofline.  Pressure data was measured on the roof of the full-scale complement of the scale-model during hurricane Ivan. This study presents the variability of the wind loads among the wind tunnels and compares the full-scale loads against the wind tunnel results. Implications with respect to the current prescriptive design loads in ASCE7 are addressed.

Dr. Kurtis R. Gurley is an associate professor at the University of Florida. His primary areas of research are wind effects on residential structures and stochastic modeling of extreme winds and structural resistance. Dr. Gurley has largely focused on in-field measurement and modeling of ground-level hurricane winds and wind loads on occupied coastal residential structures. This field data is coupled with post-storm residential damage assessments, laboratory evaluations of component capacities, and wind tunnel studies to model the vulnerability of residential structures to hurricane wind damage. The research output from Dr. Gurley and his colleagues contributes to a variety of hazard preparation and response initiatives. Dr. Gurley is an associate editor for ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering, a member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, and on the Board of Directors for Applied Technology Council.