Failure Tests of Full-scale Houses using Realistic Wind Loads

Damage due to hurricanes and other windstorms has increased dramatically in recent years, incurring losses of life and property around the world. Funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust was awarded in 2004 for the “Three Little Pigs Project”, a CDN 7M (4.3 M €) facility to test full-scale houses and other light-frame buildings to failure under simulated environmental loads. A pneumatic actuator system will replicate time histories of temporally and spatially varying wind pressures recorded on representative wind tunnel models. The data captured will validate computer-based analyses of the complex load paths through these highly redundant and vaguely defined structural systems up to failure. This paper presents some of the novel design criteria developed for the loading system of the facility. Construction will start in 2005 with the first full-scale tests scheduled for the fall of 2006.