Modeling of Hurricane-Induced Interior and Contents Damage and Associated Time-Related Expenses to Residential Buildings
Abstract
Hurricanes are a main cause of economic losses in many parts of the world, including the
state of Florida. They affect the exterior, interior, and the contents of residential buildings.
The damage of the interior can be as much as half of the total damage, but the estimation of
the interior damage is still somewhat crude. Most damage models estimate interior damage
as a percentage of the exterior damage, or through simple relationships, that relate the
height of water ingress in the building to the interior damage. The current version of the
Commercial Low-Rise Residential vulnerability model (CLR) of the Florida Public
Hurricane Loss Model (FPHLM), v6.2 uses this simple relationship, but the new model,
which this thesis presents, is a test-based model. This new methodology is used for interior
damage estimation, which takes into account the physical mechanisms of hurricane-induced
interior damage. The method incorporates the results of large-scale tests to quantify the
water propagation and distribution from component to component in the interior of the
building. The thesis describes the methodology and presents the resulting building, contents,
and time-related expenses vulnerability curves.