Typhoon wind hazard analysis for southeast China coastal regions

Southeast coastal region is the most developed and populated area in China, and also is one of the regions most seriously impacted by typhoons in the world. In this paper, typhoon wind hazard analysis for 11 major cities, Shanghai, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Taipei, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Zhanjiang, and Haikou, in the southeast China coastal regions, is conducted for the first time. The historical typhoon data from the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) and the State Oceanic Administration is carefully processed and the probabilistic distributions of the key typhoon parameters for the 11 cities are established. The correlations between the key typhoon parameters are carefully evaluated. The wind field model given by Thompson and Cardone is introduced, and the radial pressure profile is properly addressed with validation of the model by six cyclones. Monte Carlo random sampling method is employed to generate virtual typhoons and 1000 years of typhoons are simulated for the 11 cities. Extreme wind speeds of different return periods are then predicted. There is a reasonable agreement between the predictions of wind speed in the code of Hong Kong and available literature, suggesting that the approach is effective in determining the design wind speeds for critical structures in the southeast China coastal regions. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.