Design for wind loading
Readers may remember our earlier correspondence arising from the discussion which took place at the Institution following the damage observed to have been done (and not done!) to buildings as a result of the storm of 14 October 1987. During that discussion, it had been commented that, despite the widespread occurrence then of wind
speeds corresponding to a return period of 200 years, little or no primary damage had been suffered by ‘engineered structures’. In our issue of 15 March, Mr L. Metter pointed out that many of those structures had been designed using the 1952 Code, using loading less onerous than that introduced into CP3: Chap. V: Part 2: Wind loading in 1972, and from this he drew the conclusion that the wind loading called for in the later Code was ‘both onerous and incorrect’. To this, John Mayne of the Building Research Station responded on 21 June, cautioning against such a conclusion being drawn
because of the uncertain division of the global safety factor between loading and the many other uncertainties for which it allowed. We ourselves and a later correspondent (Adrian Warburton on 16 August) remained unconvinced about the lessons to be drawn, and we are pleased that Barry Haseltine now draws our attention to a further assessment in a new report from BRE:
Verulam