Movable sloped panels to modify building profiles and reduce wind resistance, to protect buildings during high winds

Abstract

Sloping panel assemblies are disclosed, for protecting coastal homes and other buildings against hurricanes or very high winds. Long waterproof panels with widths up to 12 feet, made with fibers from recycled carpets, can be rapidly affixed to anchoring devices that have been shallowly buried around the periphery of a building. After anchoring, the panels will lean against the eave of a building, creating an enclosed pyramid-like structure capped by the roof of the building. Wedge-shaped nose and tail sections can similarly be affixed to the ends of A-frame buildings. Hinged cover panels, over drainage trenches, can be raised and locked at a sloped angle, to provide windbreaks and floodwater drainage on the windward sides of coastal buildings.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]This invention is in the field of building design, and relates to buildings that may be subject to very high winds, such as along a coastline that may be hit by hurricanes or typhoons.[0002]The devastation suffered by the U.S. Gulf Coast, and by the Yukatan peninsula, due to the four hurricanes that hit Florida in 2004, and Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in 2005, have made it clear that better methods and designs are needed for homes and other buildings that may need to withstand hurricane-force winds, including winds from Category 5 (“monster”) hurricanes.[0003]Various wind-resistant designs have been proposed over the past few decades, including (for example) homes with rounded roofs and low profiles, with shapes comparable to mushroom caps resting on the ground. However, only a very few such buildings have been built, and such structures and designs cannot be retrofitted (without great difficulty and expense) onto existing buildings with conv...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0018]As another example, an A-frame home or other building can be provided with wedge-shaped “nose” and “tail” segments, at both ends of the building. If desired, the entire building and the anchoring points for the nose and tail “wedges” can be built on top of a large rotatable platform, reinforced by steel or other beams. If desired, the utility supply lines can be disconnected, and the entire platform can be either raised or lowered, by hydraulic jacks with wheels on the bottom ends, until a gearing mechanism is engaged. This would allow the A-frame structure to be rotated, during a hurricane, so that the “nose” points into the wind at all times as a hurricane passes over, to minimize wind resistance. Alternately or additionally, the top (“crest”) portion of an A-frame building can be built in modular sections, which can be affixed to the base structure in a detachable manner. This would allow the upper segments to be unbolted and removed by a crane, when a hurricane is approaching, and replaced by one or more horizontal panels, to give the building a lower profile and less wind resistance while the storm passes.

[0019]The work required to prepare for a hurricane can be carried out by a team of able-bodied workers, with the aid of portable cranes that can be moved quickly from house to house. In a location such as a housing subdivision on or near a coast, the panels and their supporting frames can be stored in a central location, or used to provide other types of structures (such as decks, carports, etc.) when not needed for storm protection. A team of several workers can rapidly affix the panels to a building, requiring roughly an hour or so for each home. Since modern hurricane tracking provides at least a day's notice (and usually more) before landfall, this would allow dozens, hundreds, or thousands of small teams of homeowners, reserve crews, high school athletes, military personnel, etc. to quickly install such panels on hundreds or thousands of buildings in the path of an approaching hurricane, provided that the anchoring structures had already been installed when time was not crucial.

[0020]In addition, a trench and barrier system is disclosed which can use hydraulics or jacks to raise long panels that are mounted on hinges, in ways that will create a sloping barrier on the windward side of a home when a hurricane or other major storm approaches. The trench, located behind and beneath the raised panels, can be provided with a drainage and pumping system to pump out any water that collects in the trench, thereby reducing the risk of flooding in the protected building.

Problems solved by technology

However, only a very few such buildings have been built, and such structures and designs cannot be retrofitted (without great difficulty and expense) onto existing buildings with conventional rectangular walls and foundations.

The first factor arises from the fact that rectangular frames are inherently unstable, since they tend to collapse when subjected to “shearing forces”.

However, at some point, as the wind grows stronger, deformation of the frame will begin, driven by a combination of pressure against the upwind (windward) side of the building, and a relative vacuum on the downwind (leeward) side of the building.

If the boards begin to rotate and pivot about the shafts of screws or nails at the corners of the frame, those screws and nails and not able to provide substantial resistance.

Accordingly, rectangular frame designs are inherently at risk of deformation and collapse.

That type of initial breach can occur for any of various reasons; for example, a sheet of plywood nailed over a window might be blown loose, the glass can break, a latch on a door can fail, etc.

Regardless of how the breach begins, if a strong wind manages to enter even a single room inside a house, it will begin exerting pressures on the interior walls and ceilings in the building.

This destructive force, imposed against the north wall, will be even higher due to the creation of a relative vacuum on the leeward side of that same wall.

The point that needs to be understood is that even small increases in air pressure, when imposed upon the walls and ceiling inside a building that has been breached, can create multiple tons of destructive force, which will begin trying to pry and pull apart those walls and ceilings.

The tons of force that will be created, if that happens, can rip apart the walls and ceilings if a building suffers even a small initial breach.

Therefore, a 100 mph wind creates destructive forces that are more than twice as severe as a 70 mph wind.

Instead, global climate change threatens to create unusually severe storms and windspeeds at all latitudes.

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