Arguably the most influential climatic load affecting the structural design of gulf coast refining and petrochemical facilities is wind. Despite this fact, little has been done to customize wind design for these unique facilities. This paper proposes a probabilistic model to predict the magnitude of shielding that is provided by the vast network of pipe rack structures that encircle these densely arranged facilities. The probabilistic model is built from data obtained through a broad sampling of pipe rack configurations simulated with hurricane force winds using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The CFD simulation approach is validated against published wind tunnel data that relate the proposed methodology to code recognized procedures (i.e. wind load reductions corroborated by wind tunnel testing). A reliability analysis is then carried out to re-calibrate the LRFD design equation to include the proposed shielding effects while maintaining the code specified level of reliability.

可以说，影响海湾沿岸炼油和石化设施结构设计的最有影响力的气候负荷是风。尽管如此，针对这些独特设施定制风能设计的工作还是很少。本文提出了一个概率模型，以预测由包围这些密集布置的设施的庞大的管架结构网络提供的屏蔽量。概率模型是根据通过使用计算流体力学（CFD）用飓风风模拟的大量管架配置获得的数据建立的。针对已发布的风洞数据验证了CFD模拟方法，该数据将建议的方法与已识别的程序关联起来（即风洞测试所证实的风荷载减少）。