Assessment of pre-engineered metal building damage in hurricane winds

Wind disasters pose one of the major threats to the serviceability of buildings during their designed life cycle. Post-disaster damage documentation has proved that windstorms have destroyed multiple residential and commercial facilities alike. The focus of this thesis is to determine whether the damages to metal buildings during a hurricane were aerodynamically accepted. Quantification of factors affecting damages such as wind speed and pressures acting during the passage of hurricane lead to categorization of buildings under two main categories, which are again divided into subcategories:

1. Overload: Expected damages, and
2. Understrength: a) Aerodynamically accepted damages in the expected zones; b) Aerodynamically accepted damages but not in the expected zones; c) Damages too extensive to judge aerodynamics, and; d) Aerodynamically unaccepted damages