ABSTRACT
Wind loads represent the prevalent critical loads for light structural systems such as transmission line systems. Considering the synoptic wind loads alone is not acceptable when more than 90% of transmission towers failures in Australia are due to severe thunderstorms such as downburst events (Li 2000). In addition, reports of extreme wind speeds in Australia have highlighted the importance of downburst loads in that they are the extreme wind at 10 m height (Holmes 2002).Although there are several experimental and numerical models for simulating downburst winds there is still a need for developing analytical and empirical models to simplify the analyses of structural systems under these types of loads.
