The role of analytical methods for evaluating the wind-induced response of structures

This paper illustrates and discusses the progress and the prospects of analytical methods for estimating the wind-induced response of structures, with special regard to cantilever vertical structures. Also in this era of large facilities and super-computers, closed form solutions, eventually assisted by user-friendly numerical programs, electronic sheets and symbolic calculus tools, imply relevant significance and great potentialities. Their use may be divided into two operative lines, referred to as direct applications and integrated procedures. Direct applications concern those analyses that pursue their aims by applying analytical methods autonomously; they comprehend two broad classes of procedures addressed, respectively, to solve specific engineering problems and to assess general tendencies. Integrated procedures concern those analyses that pursue their aims through articulated flow-charts whose logical blocks imply analytical methods, numerical algorithms and experimental measurements; embedded in such a context, analytical methods are powerful tools to establish reliable procedures for the aerodynamic identification of structures and to solve complex wind engineering problems, among which the propagation of uncertainties, structural reliability and wind-induced fatigue, otherwise almost prohibitive.