231 research outputs found
Improving the Resilience of Existing Housing to Severe Wind Events: annual project report 2014-2015
Get PDFDamage investigations carried out by the Cyclone Testing Station (CTS) following severe wind storms have typically shown that Australian houses built prior to the mid-1980s do not offer the same level of performance and protection during windstorms as houses constructed to contemporary building standards. Given that these older houses will represent the bulk of the housing stock for many decades, practical structural upgrading solutions based on the latest research will make a significant improvement to housing performance and to the economic and social well-being of the community.
Structural retrofitting details exist for some forms of legacy housing but the uptake of these details is limited. There is also evidence that retrofitting details are not being included into houses requiring major repairs following severe storm events, thus missing the ideal opportunity to improve resilience of the house and community. Hence, the issues of retrofitting legacy housing, including feasibility and hindrances on take-up, etc., must be analysed.
The primary objective of this research is to develop cost-effective strategies for mitigating damage to housing from severe windstorms across Australia. These evidence-based strategies will be (a) tailored to aid policy formulation and decision making in government and industry, and (b) provide guidelines detailing various options and benefits to homeowners and the building community for retrofitting typical at-risk houses in Australian communities
Improving the Resilience of Existing Housing to Severe Wind Events: annual project report 2014-2015
Get PDFDamage investigations carried out by the Cyclone Testing Station (CTS) following severe wind storms have typically shown that Australian houses built prior to the mid-1980s do not offer the same level of performance and protection during windstorms as houses constructed to contemporary building standards. Given that these older houses will represent the bulk of the housing stock for many decades, practical structural upgrading solutions based on the latest research will make a significant improvement to housing performance and to the economic and social well-being of the community.
Structural retrofitting details exist for some forms of legacy housing but the uptake of these details is limited. There is also evidence that retrofitting details are not being included into houses requiring major repairs following severe storm events, thus missing the ideal opportunity to improve resilience of the house and community. Hence, the issues of retrofitting legacy housing, including feasibility and hindrances on take-up, etc., must be analysed.
The primary objective of this research is to develop cost-effective strategies for mitigating damage to housing from severe windstorms across Australia. These evidence-based strategies will be (a) tailored to aid policy formulation and decision making in government and industry, and (b) provide guidelines detailing various options and benefits to homeowners and the building community for retrofitting typical at-risk houses in Australian communities
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Is No News (Perceived as) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure
Get PDFA central prediction of information economics is that market forces can lead businesses to voluntarily provide information about the quality of their products, yet little voluntary disclosure is observed in the field. In this paper, we demonstrate that the inconsistency between theory and reality is driven by a fundamental failure in consumer inferences when sellers withhold information. Using a series of laboratory experiments, we implement a simple disclosure game in which senders can verifiably report quality to receivers. We find that senders disclose less often than equilibrium would predict. Receivers are not sufficiently skeptical about undisclosed information – they underestimate the extent to which no news is bad news. Senders generally take advantage of receiver mistakes. We find that providing disclosure rates by quality score helps to improve receiver inferences
Modelling the vulnerability of a high-set house roof structure to windstorms using VAWS
Get PDFModelling the vulnerability of houses in windstorms is important for insurance pricing, policy-making, and emergency management. Vulnerability models for Australian house types have been developed since the 1970s and have ranged from empirical models to more advanced reliability based structural engineering models, which provide estimates of damage for a range of wind speeds of interest. This paper describes recent developments in the engineering based vulnerability modelling software: ‘Vulnerability and Adaption to Wind Simulation’ (VAWS), which uses probability based reliability analysis and structural engineering for the loading and response coupled with an extensive test database and field damage assessments to calculate the damage experienced by selected Australian house types. A case study is presented to demonstrate the program's ability to model progressive failures, internal pressurization and debris impact
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