Determination of Basic Wind Speed for the Design of Buildings in Cambodia

Abstract

Basic wind speed is a very essential parameter used for conversion into wind loads on building structures. In Cambodia, the information on basic wind speed remains uncertain due to insufficient fundamental studies on the wind characteristics associated with regional climatic conditions. The aim of this paper is to assess and discuss the basic wind speeds for structural wind-resistant design in Cambodia by using statistical and probabilistic approaches. The datasets have been collected from National Centers for Environmental Information datasets, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under World Meteorological Organization, and Mekong River Commission in forms of hourly wind speeds. The hourly wind speeds were then statically converted to 3-second gusts speeds using Gaussian Distribution Transformation. The extreme value distributions namely, Gumbel and Gringorten were used to analyze the extreme speed in accordance with a return period. The results showed that with a return period of 10 to 1000 years, the basic wind speed varies from a minimum of 22m/s to a maximum of 53m/s, respectively. These results provided a new aspect over traditionally uncertain basic wind speed selection and can be an alternative for the estimation of wind loads for the design of building structures in Cambodia.