Date of Award
8-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Civil Engineering
Committee Chair/Advisor
Weichiang Pang
Committee Member
Michael Stoner
Committee Member
Chao Fan
Committee Member
Whitney Huang
Abstract
Hurricanes are among the most destructive natural hazards in the United States, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Climate change is expected to affect hurricane activity by changing important environmental conditions. At the same time, offshore wind energy is expanding, creating a need to understand hurricane risks to offshore wind turbines.
This dissertation develops a stochastic hurricane simulation framework to estimate hurricane wind hazards for coastal and offshore regions along the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast. The framework generates synthetic hurricane tracks using updated storm-frequency data and is validated against historical records from HURDAT2, NOAA buoy wind observations, and ASCE 7-22 design wind speeds. The results show that the model can reasonably reproduce hurricane characteristics and wind-speed patterns.
Under current climate conditions, the highest wind hazards are found in southern offshore regions, especially near South Florida, while lower hazards occur in the northeastern offshore region. The framework is then extended to future climate scenarios by incorporating projected sea surface temperature, humidity, and wind shear. Bias correction is applied to climate data, and selected climate models are used for hazard analysis.
Future projections show increased annual storm frequency and higher extreme hurricane wind speeds at offshore sites. Wind-speed increases range from about 8% to 22% under SSP2-4.5 and 20% to 36% under SSP3-7.0. The study also finds that future warming may increase offshore wind turbine failure risk, suggesting that stronger tower designs may be needed. It also evaluates the mean annual change in energy production caused by tropical cyclone winds. The largest relative increases under future warming occur in northeastern states such as Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey.
Recommended Citation
Bhowmik, Susmita, "Probabilistic Modeling of Hurricane Hazards and Structural Reliability of Offshore Wind Turbines under Climate Change" (2026). All Dissertations. 4403.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/4403
Author ORCID Identifier
0009-0009-3963-536