Typhoon damage analysis of transmission towers in mountainous regions of Kyushu, Japan

In the 1990s, four strong typhoons hit the Kyushu area of Japan and inflicted severe damage on power transmission facilities, houses, and so on. Maximum gust speeds exceeding 60 m/s were recorded in central Kyushu. Although the wind speeds were very high, the gust factors were over 2.0. No meteorological stations are located in mountainous areas, creating a deficiency of meteorological station data in the area where the towers were damaged. Since 1995 the authors have operated a network for wind measurement, NeWMeK, that measures wind speed and direction, covering these mountainous areas, segmenting the Kyushu area into high density arrays. Maximum gusts exceeding 70 m/s were measured at several NeWMeK sites when Typhoon Bart (1999) approached. The gust factors varied widely in southerly winds. The mean wind speeds increased due to effects of the local terrain, thus further increasing gust speeds.