Serviceability criteria for wind-induced acceleration and damping uncertainties

Classical serviceability criteria for wind-induced accelerations are discussed pointing out their conventional character and unreliability due to the uncertain knowledge of structural damping. A theoretical frame of some advanced probabilistic criteria is given showing that, in this context, damping uncertainties can be easily taken into account together with wind velocity randomness. It is demonstrated that the joint use of damping models, closed-form solutions and uncertainty propagation techniques previously formulated by these authors leads to analytical formulae, the application of which is as simple as the use of classical conventional procedures.