A study of dynamic respone of a lighting pole during a downburst through time-domain analysis and full-scale structural monitoring

The effect of downbursts on structures has been a topic of study for the past two decades. Numerical and analytical methods for the calculation of downburst wind loads and the dynamic response of structures have also been proposed. However, the proposed methods have not been verified using full-scale structural response data. This research presents the response of a monitored lighting pole during two downburst events, with a comparison of responses estimated through time-domain analysis. It is shown that the overall trend of the time history of the mean response is in close agreement with the registered response, and the fluctuating component of the response is highly dependent on the assumed wind field coherence.