The role of parameter uncertainties in the alongwind-induced fatigue damage prediction

The paper is part of a research project aimed at the probabilistic description of the fatigue life, suitable for risk analyses and safety evaluations. One of the authors of this paper has carried out many researches connected with the definition of the current wind distribution and with the probabilistic nature of the wind-excited response of structures deriving the distribution of the uncertainties in their evaluation. Starting from an analytical model of the fatigue analysis , this study identifies a set of input quantities which are described in terms of mean value and variance. Adopting a suitable uncertainty propagation technique, the paper discusses the influence of the selected parameters on the fatigue life evaluation