Verification of correction factors for non-Gaussian effect on fatigue damage on the side face of tall buildings

The action of wind pressures is a major consideration in the design of cladding and its connections to building structures. Non-Gaussian environmental loads often may appropriately be reduced to Gaussian loads through the central limit theorem, e.g., integral loads on a building under wind loads. However, for the design load of cladding and its connections to building structures the Gaussian assumption is not valid and loads remain non-Gaussian, especially in separated flow regions. When the loads differ significantly from Gaussian distribution, they may lead to increase expected damage. In the current paper, wind-induced high-cycle fatigue damage of cladding fasteners subjected to non-Gaussian local wind pressures and corresponding simulated Gaussian local wind pressures is estimated by using the rainflow cycle counting method and Miner’s rule. The ratio of the fatigue damage in cladding fasteners subjected to the measured non-Gaussian local wind pressures to the fatigue damage in cladding fasteners subjected to the corresponding simulated Gaussian local wind pressures is obtained and compared with the two correction factors proposed by Winterstein in order to verify the applicability of the two correction factors to closed form solutions.