No abstract

Historical and contemporary observations of wave-impact loading on rock lighthouses during storms are presented.With climate change potentially causing sea level rise and more energetic wave climates, the longevity of these heritage structures cannot be taken for granted. To obtain a better understanding of the wave-structure interaction, Plymouth University has been working with the General Lighthouse Authorities to develop monitoring and modelling techniques suitable for these isolated masonry structures. Details of the field campaign, in which 2978 impact events were recorded during the winter storms of 2013/2014, are presented together with an initial analysis that begins to shed light on the dynamic response of these iconic structures. The results indicate that the response can be sensitive to the type of wave impact and that the overall motion of the Eddystone tower was less than might have been expected. A finite-element model of the tower was able to reproduce accurately the frequencies of the first and third modes of vibration but, unlike the field data, failed to show response at a frequency near the second mode. Preliminary attempts to apply wave loads estimated on the basis of ISO 21650 show reasonable agreement between the model displacements and those measured.

Buildings typically have a long life span, which can easily reach 50 or 100 years. In the light of expected climate change it is therefore important to look towards the future, and to analyse how buildings will cope with the changes in climate that are predicted by the climatologists. In such long-term predictions of building performance, uncertainties play a large role. This paper describes a preliminary study that aims to better map out the consequences of dealing with a whole range of uncertainties in the specific case of predicting the effect of climate change on the energy use and thermal comfort (overheating) in the large stock of terraced houses in the UK. Uncertainties in climate change prediction are compared with other variable factors like building occupancy patterns, actual thickness of construction materials and HVAC control settings. Uncertainties have been propagated in a transient model of these terraced houses using the transient simulation program EnergyPlus. In order to explore the large range of input variants use has been made of a genetic algorithm. The current search and solution spaces are discussed, putting the impact of climate change in perspective with regards to other changes and developments that might increase or decrease overheating. Overall, the findings indicate that uncertainties in long term thermal performance predictions run high, with standard deviations of over 100%. However, the robustness of the contemporary dwelling design is fortunately high.

No abstract

No abstract