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Town of Southern Shores on the outer banks of North Carolina has initiated a mitigation
program, "Blue Sky," to develop improved means of protecting residential
properties against wind damage. Blue Sky includes programs to retrofit existing
houses as well as to perform the research necessary to develop adequate wind-load design
codes for residential facilities. As part of Blue Sky, a system has been developed
to obtain full-scale pressure measurements at various locations on the Kern P. Pitts
Center, a low-rise structure in Southern Shores, North Carolina. In addition to pressure
data, strains and displacements (at various locations on the structure) as well as weather
parameters (i.e. wind velocity, rainfall, barometric pressure and temperature) in the
vicinity of the testing site are continuously monitored in a variety of weather conditions
up to and including hurricane force winds. Southern
Shores offers a unique opportunity to provide important data relative to the understanding
of wind pressures and loads on full-scale buildings. The Pitts Center will provide data of
direct relevance to low-rise residential construction, which has exhibited significant
vulnerability in past hurricanes (notably Andrew). This structure also offers a reasonable
chance of experiencing at least winter storm northeasterly winds and also tropical storm
or hurricane magnitude winds. Data from these storms would be a key addition to the
literature.
The Team
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