Estimation of extreme wind speed based on upcrossing rate of mean wind speeds with Weibull distribution

The estimation of the extreme mean wind speed has a pivotal role in the structural wind-resistance design. For yearly maximum mean wind speed samples usually not enough, it is necessary to estimate the extreme mean wind speed from short-term mean wind speed records, such as about a few years. The upcrossing rate method, which relies on the distribution of the mean wind speed, is one of the popular extreme estimation methods. It is widely recognized that the mean wind speed follows the Weibull distribution usually and the Rayleigh distribution at some areas. The upcrossing rate method for mean wind speed time series following Rayleigh distribution was proposed by Harris. The upcrossing rate method for mean wind speed time series following the Weibull distribution is studied in the present paper, by translating the Weibull process to the Rayleigh process based on the theory of cumulative distribution function mapping. The uncertainty of the extreme mean wind speed estimated by the proposed method is investigated to consider the sampling error from short-term mean wind speed records. The effectiveness of the proposed upcrossing rate method and uncertainty analysis are verified by the numerically generated mean wind speeds based on the spectral representation method with Von der Hoven wind speed spectrum. •A method is proposed to estimate the extreme wind speed from the upcrossing rate function of the mean wind speed with Weibull distribution based on the translation process.•The uncertainty and its sensitivity of the extreme wind speed estimated by the proposed method are investigated by numerical study.•The effectiveness and uncertainty of the proposed method are respectively validated and investigated by the data generated by the spectral representation method.