Wind-excited response of structures with uncertain parameters

The wind-excited response of structures is classically evaluated by considering the model parameters as deterministic. Due to this assumption, the density function of the maximum response is so narrow and sharp as to make the expected maximum a suitable pseudo-deterministic representation of the maximum response. Based on Taylor series expansions retaining up to the first and second-order derivative terms, this paper provides closed form expressions of the first and second statistical moments of the maximum response taking the uncertainties of the parameters and the model error into account. It is shown that such uncertainties may spread and shift the density function of the maximum response to the point at which the classical value of the expected maximum is no longer representative of the structural behaviour.