Wind Induced Damage to Roofs and Mitigations: A Comparative Study on
Roofs in Bhutan and Japan

A final research report presented

byYeshey Lotay
Visiting Researcher (FY2014B)

to
Asian Disaster Reduction Center
April 22, 2015

DISCLAIMER

This report was compiled by an ADRC visiting researcher (VR) from ADRC member
countries. The views expressed in the report do not necessarily reflect the views of the ADRC.
The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on the maps in the report also do not
imply official endorsement or acceptance by the ADRC.

iABSTRACTWindstorms have become more frequent and widespread hazards in recent years in
Bhutan. During 2011 and 2013 windstorms, 2424 and 1017 rural home roofs were damaged
respectively and caused huge economy loss to the government. The past windstorm damages
reveal that the rural home roofs are more vulnerable to strong winds given the nature of rural
home construction in Bhutan.
In this study, the rural home roofs in Bhutan and Japan is studied based on the roofs;
configuration, shape, slope, size, overhang, connection, support and roofing material used. The
study is mainly carried out to assess the windstorm damage on the rural home roofs in Bhutan
based on the above mentioned category comparing with the Japanese roof structures.
In this study, roof type, roof overhang, anchorage, roof-to-wall connection and support
string vs damage is assessed using the survey data of four districts in Bhutan and reports of theroof damages.
From this study, it is concluded that most of the rural home roofs in Bhutan failed due to poorconnections between roof-to-wall and pull through failure during the strong wind. This study
proposes a few mitigation suggestion and recommendation to reduce the future damages by
providing the strong support string and proving sand bags on the roof to prevent the uplift.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Asian Disaster Reduction Center(ADRC) for funding this program, without the full support from the ADRC, this program would
not have been possible.
Also, I would like to thank the Executive Director, Mr. Kiyoshi NATORI, seniorresearcher, Mr. Masaru ARAKIDA, Senior researcher, Ms. Yumi SHIOMI and all the staff
members of the ADRC office for supporting and helping me during my three and half months
stay in ARDC office. They have rendered every possible help and supports in making my staymemorable and enjoyable as a visiting researcher.
I owe my deepest gratitude to the Director of Department of Disaster Management(DDM) and Royal Government of Bhutan (RGoB) for granting me permission to attend thisprogram, despite the shortage of staff in the department.
I would like to thank Professor Yukio Tamura of Tokyo Polytechnic University andProfessor Masaya Kawabata of Yokohama National University, for their full supports andguidance during this research.
I would like to thank Mr. Rinzin Dorji, Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), for sharing
the wind data and helping and supporting me in any way he could. Special thanks to my wife andtwo daughters, who have been positive, supportive and compassionate during my three and halfmonths away from them.
Lastly, I would like to thank my visiting researcher friends Ms. Ortega Meerha Parale
from Philippines and Ms. Moosa Fathmath Shaushan from Maldives for their cooperation during
our stay in ADRC.
iii

TABLE OF CONTENTSDISCLAIMER ................................................................................................................................. i
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... vi
LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... ix
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................................... x
GLOSSARY .................................................................................................................................. xi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1
1.1

Background ...................................................................................................................... 1

1.2

Problem Statement ........................................................................................................... 2

1.3

Scope and Objective ......................................................................................................... 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERTURE REVIEW ........................................................................................... 4
2.1

Bhutanese Traditional Roof Types, Material and Configuration ..................................... 4

2.1.1

Types of Bhutanese Roofs ........................................................................................ 4

2.1.2 Types of Bhutanese Roof Materials ................................................................................. 9
2.1.3 Bhutanese Traditional Roof Configurations .................................................................. 11
2.2

Japanese Traditional Roof Types, Material and Configurations .................................... 14

2.2.1

Types of Japanese Traditional Roofs ...................................................................... 14

2.2.2

Japanese Traditional Roof Materials ...................................................................... 17

2.2.3

Japanese Traditional Roof Configurations.............................................................. 20

2.3Wind Characteristics and Wind Direction in the South Asia Region ............................ 22

2.4

Different Scales of Windstorms ..................................................................................... 23

2.5

History of Wind-Related Disasters around the World ................................................... 25

2.6

Wind Effects on the Roofing System ............................................................................. 27iv

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLGY ................................................................................................... 30
3.1

Recent Windstorm Damages in Bhutan ......................................................................... 30

3.2Wind load Calculation and Pull-through Force per Connection of CGI Sheet Metal.... 31

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS ................................................................... 32
4.1

Recent Windstorm Damages to Rural Home Roofs in Bhutan ...................................... 32

4.2

Recent Survey on the Windstorm Damages in the four districts in Bhutan ................... 41

4.3

Static Wind Load and Pull through Load Calculation on the CGI Sheet Metal ............ 44

4.4

Mitigations and Counter Measures for the Rural Home Roofs ...................................... 46

4.4.1

Roof Type Selection ............................................................................................... 46

4.4.2

Roof Configurations and Connections .................................................................... 47

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS ..................................................................................................... 51
5.1

Comparison of Bhutan and Japan Roofs ........................................................................ 51

5.2

Recent Windstorm Damages .......................................................................................... 52

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................ 53
6.1

Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 53

6.2

Recommendations .......................................................................................................... 54

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 55
ANNEXURE-1 ............................................................................................................................. 58v

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Jabzhi roof with CGI sheet roofing ................................................................................. 6
Figure 2: Traditional Bhutanese gable roof with shingle roofing ................................................... 6
Figure 3: Gable roof with corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheet ................................................ 7
Figure 4: Hip + gable roof with CGI sheet roofing ........................................................................ 7
Figure 5: Drangim roof with CGI sheet roofing ............................................................................. 7
Figure 6: Jamthok roof with CGI sheet roofing .............................................................................. 8
Figure 7: Ura Village with Jamthok roof ........................................................................................ 8
Figure 8 : Lean-to roof with shingle roofing (L) and CGI sheet roofing (R) ................................. 8
Figure 9 : Wooden shingles (L) and slate roofing (R) .................................................................... 9
Figure 10 : Thatched roofing (L) and bamboo mat (R) ................................................................ 10
Figure 11: Banana leaves roofing (source: DoC, 2010) ............................................................... 10
Figure 12: Corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheet metal roofing ............................................... 10
Figure 13: Bhutanese traditional roof configuration ..................................................................... 11
Figure 14: Jamthok roof configuration ......................................................................................... 12
Figure 15: Hip + gable roof tie beam (left) and rafter (right) layout ............................................ 12
Figure 16 : Hip + gable roof configuration with CGI roofing ...................................................... 13
Figure 17: Jamthok roof tie beam layout ...................................................................................... 13
Figure 18 : Jamthok roof configuration with CGI sheet roofing .................................................. 14
Figure 19: Farmhouse from Yamato Totsukawa, Nara with large eaves ..................................... 15
Figure 20: Hip roof (yosemune) ................................................................................................... 16
Figure 21 : Gable roof (kirizuma) with thatched roofing (L) and cryptomeria bark roofing (R) . 16
Figure 22 : Hip and gable roof (irimoya) ...................................................................................... 16

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Figure 23: Concave and convex tile (L) and bamboo roofing (R) ................................................ 17
Figure 24: Types of kawara .......................................................................................................... 18
Figure 25: Pan tiles (sangawara) and its layout ............................................................................ 18
Figure 26: Thatch roofing ............................................................................................................. 19
Figure 27: Shingle or plank roofing in Sado Island Niigata ......................................................... 19
Figure 28: Bark roofing ................................................................................................................ 20
Figure 29: Japanese truss (Wagoya-gumi) (L) and brace truss (Sasu-gumi) (R) ......................... 21
Figure 30: King post truss (Shintsuka-gumi) (L) and rising beam truss (Noboribari-gumi) (R) . 21
Figure 31 : Hip roof (light) and gable roof configuration (R) ...................................................... 21
Figure 32: Summer (L) and winter monsoon (R) in the South Asia region ................................ 23
Figure 33: Overall Losses due natural disaster around the world ................................................ 25
Figure 34: Graph showing the number of natural disaster around the world between 1980 and2012............................................................................................................................................... 26
Figure 35: Graph showing the natural disasters in Bhutan from 1994-2014 ................................ 26
Figure 36: Showing the percentage of natural disaster occurred till 2014 ................................... 27
Figure 37: Positive and negative wind pressure on roof ............................................................... 28
Figure 38: External wind pressure pattern roof ............................................................................ 28
Figure 39: Map showing the four districts .................................................................................... 30
Figure 40: Graph showing the 2011 and 2013 windstorm damage on different roof structures .. 33
Figure 41: Gable end and roof edge failure .................................................................................. 34
Figure 42: Roof failure at roof ridge and over turning failure mode ............................................ 34
Figure 43: Roof ridge failure during 2011 windstorm .................................................................. 35
Figure 44: Roof ridge connection in rural home roof with deep groove and lap joint ................. 35vii

Figure 45: Failure due the poor connection between rafters and struts causing full-blown off ... 36
Figure 46: Full-blown of rural home roof due to failure in the connections ................................ 37
Figure 47: Purlin section failure (L) and joint failure (R) ............................................................ 37
Figure 48: Weak lap joint at roof ridge (L) and purlin are not laid equally (R) ........................... 38
Figure 49: Gable roof end failure (L) and large roof overhang (R) .............................................. 38
Figure 50: Graph showing the roof overhang in the four districts in Bhutan ............................... 39
Figure 51: Sliding of roof (L) and over-turning of roof (R) ......................................................... 40
Figure 52: Roof supports/struts are simply supported on the attic roof or wall ........................... 40
Figure 53: Graph showing the different type of roof-to-wall connection ..................................... 41
Figure 54: Graph showing the windstorm damage vs the type of roof in four districts ............... 42
Figure 55: Graph showing damage vs anchorage (L) and damage vs roof overhang (R) ............ 43
Figure 56: Graph showing the damage vs support string (L) and damage vs connection (R) ...... 43
Figure 57: Roof type effect on uplift pressure (Bhandari et al., 2005) ......................................... 46
Figure 58: Japanese thatched roof connection using ropes ........................................................... 47
Figure 59: Use of support string (L) and metal straps (R) during the reconstruction in Paro ...... 47
Figure 60: Most likely locations of roof damages ........................................................................ 48
Figure 61: Support string or guy-wire or rope and sand bags (L) and wooden shingle over CGI
sheet metal with stone (R)............................................................................................................. 49
Figure 62: Gable end stiffener, roof ridge stiffener, corner stiffener and overhang ties (L) andadditional purlins & bracing (R) ................................................................................................... 49
Figure 63: Laps in CGI sheet metal and types of hooks & bolt .................................................... 50

viii

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Various scale for measuring windstorms ........................................................................ 23
Table 2: Various damages based on wind speed ......................................................................... 24
Table 3: Fujita scale of wind speed and various damages originally formulated by Fujita in 1971....................................................................................................................................................... 25
Table 4: 2011 windstorm damages on rural home roofs in the seventeen districts in Bhutan ..... 32
Table 5: 2013 December windstorm damages on rural home roofs in the thirteen districts in
Bhutan ........................................................................................................................................... 32
Table 6: Pull through force per connection................................................................................... 44
Table 7: Pull through force per connection................................................................................... 45
Table 8: Comparison of Japanese and Bhutanese roofs................................................................ 51ix

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONSAAWEAmerican Association for Wind Engineering

ADRC

Asian Disaster Reduction Center

ASCE

American Society of Civil Engineers

BAG

Bhutanese Architecture Guidelines

BHU

Basic Health Unit

CFD

Computational Fluid Dynamic

CGI

Corrugated Galvanized Iron

CIT

Chiba Institute of Technology

DCA

Department of Civil Aviation

DDM

Department of Disaster Management

DES

Department of Engineering Services

DHS

Department of Human Settlement

DoC

Department of Culture

DSE

Department of School Education

ESWL

Equivalent Static Wind LoadGI

Galvanized Iron

GLOF

Glacial Lake Outburst FloodkN

Kilo Newton

N

NewtonNAPA

National Adaptation Programme of Action

NFE

Non-Formal Education

NSB

National Statistical Bureau

x

ORC

Outreach Clinic

RGoB

Royal Government of Bhutan

RNR

Renewable Natural Resource

RBP

Royal Bhutan Police

TAG

Traditional Architecture Guidelines

UNDP

United Nations Development ProgrammeVR

Visiting Researcher

GLOSSARY
Chorten

Stupa

Dzong

FortressDzongkhag

District

DungkhagSub-district

JamthokElevated roof like monitor roofs

Lhakhang

TempleThromdeMunicipal

Gewog

Administrative Block consisting of a number of villages
under a Districtxi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 BackgroundIn the recent years, wind induced disaster is increasing and causing huge damages to rural
home roofs in Bhutan. In 2011 and 2013 windstorms, 2424 and 1017 rural home roofs weredamaged respectively causing the huge losses to the government and livelihood of the rural
people. The rural people are very much concerned of the wind induced disaster but however thepeople involved in the windstorm activities in Bhutan is very less due to the lack of windengineering capacity.
The rural home roofs in Bhutan are constructed by the carpenters based on their indigenous
knowledge. Therefore, rural home in Bhutan is non-engineered construction. Till the early
1960’s when Bhutan is not open the other world, people are using the wooden shingle or otherlocal materials as roofing materials which is more eco-friendly and wind resistant. The people atthe time were clever to use of the natural surrounding and wisdom to live in harmony with theenvironment. Therefore, there were no records of severe windstorm damage to roof in Bhutan.
As per the Lotay’s study paper (2013), in the early 1980s the roofing materials started changing
from the wooden shingles to the corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheets. The most of the roof
configuration are not changed even though the roofing materials are changed.
The change from wooden shingles to CGI sheets as a roofing materials are getting popular in
Bhutan due to its durability and affordability for the rural people. Also government encourages
the rural people to use the CGI sheets by giving the tax exemption to reduce the pressure on thetimber use. Without the proper study on the wind effect on the CGI sheets as a roofing material
for the rural home in Bhutan, it is causing huge damage during the windstorm.
1

As per the Lotay (2013), most of the Bhutan houses fall under the low rise building and low
rise building suffered huge damages due to the lower aerodynamic boundary layer on the groundsurfaces with high turbulence intensity.
In case of Japan, Japan has also lot of old houses like Bhutan. Most the traditional Japaneseroofs are constructed based on the climate, culture and customs characteristics of each locality.
Similar to past Bhutan, most of the roofing materials used was straw and eco-friendly materials
from the surrounding natural during the Edo period (17-19th century).
1.2 Problem Statement
Bhutan is located in the Himalayan Range and strong seasonal wind causes huge damages tothe structures and crops in Bhutan. Among the damages, roofs are mostly damaged during thewindstorms. In 2011 and 2013 windstorm, 2424 and 1017 rural home roofs are damaged
respectively. More than 60 per cent of the population of Bhutan lives in the rural homes andpeople depends on agriculture for their livelihoods.
Almost all the rural home construction in Bhutan was non-engineered. The roof isconstructed using the timber or bamboo circular rafters and purlins with new replaced roofing
material called corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheet metal. The houses are built by the local
carpenters, who do not have much knowledge on the new roofing materials, even thoughcarpenters are experts in the use of local roofing materials like wooden shingles. The changing ofroofing materials from the wooden shingles to the light CGI sheets started in the early 1980s in
Bhutan (Lotay, 2013). As of now, most of the rural home roofing materials are changed to lightroofing materials like CGI sheets due to affordable, durable and less maintenance but no one has

2carried out any study on the change of the roofing materials in Bhutan environment. Local
people do not understand the wind phenomena of the new roofing materials.
Most of the roofs are roofed with CGI sheets without changing the roof configurations;instead carpenters or people themselves invented or created their own ideas in closing the attics
with ply board or timber planks and providing the support strings to hold down the roofs. But allthese ideas are not assessed or tested by any one. In the master thesis report of Lotay, 2013 heconducted the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations on the attic opening and closing
parameters but he did not study much on the roof configurations, overhang effect andconnections details failure.
1.3 Scope and Objective
The scope of this study is to assess the rural home roofs in Bhutan based on the roofs;
configuration, shape, slope, size, overhang, support string, connections, overhangs and roofing
materials and comparing with the Japanese traditional roof.
The main objective of this study is to assess the rural home roofs failure based on theexisting roof configuration during the windstorm based on the literature review. This study aim
is to identify ways to mitigate or improve the existing roof structures to reduce the future
windstorm damage, taking good examples of Japanese traditional roof construction technique.
This study does not recommend the change of Bhutanese architecture of roof and mitigation
using the high and costly technique especially for the rural home roofs. Rather it recommends thesimple mitigation measure to be incorporated during the construction and reconstruction of theroof to reduce the future damages.

3

CHAPTER 2: LITERTURE REVIEW
2.1

Bhutanese Traditional Roof Types, Material and Configuration
2.1.1

Types of Bhutanese Roofs

A Bhutanese roof has a distinct character of the Bhutanese architecture in the eastern
Himalayan region with the large overhang and simply supported on the rammed earth wall or
attic floors. The traditional Bhutanese roof plays an extremely significant part in thecharacterization of traditional Bhutanese architecture, which is one of the most importantelements in the traditional Bhutanese architecture (BAG, 2014).
The traditional Bhutanese houses are mostly constructed by rammed earth wall in the westernpart and stone masonry in the eastern part of Bhutan. The houses are of two or three storeyedwith a ground floor room mainly used for livestock, second floor is use for storage and third
floor is used for living and shrine room.
Most of the traditional roofs are relatively high with large attic space between the roof andattic floor. This huge space under the roof is used for storing and drying fodders, vegetables andother farm products in old days but nowadays many houses keep empty. It was observed during
the data collection survey that the rural home roof overhang is very large as compared to urban
roof in Bhutan, the roof overhang range between 1.0m and 2.5m which protect the walls fromsun and rainstorm.
As per the Bhutanese Architecture Guidelines, the Bhutanese roof plays an important role inprotecting the building from external environmental elements. Also it played an important role indefining the hierarchy and significance of buildings and their status.

4

According to Bhutan Building Code 2002, roof slopes should be maintained in the range of
12 and 15 degree, since Bhutan lies in 27 degree north, which is almost like Okinawa in Japan.
Since, Bhutan has heavy rainfall from late June to September, but steeper roof slopes are notpossible for traditional Bhutanese roof. Since, traditional Bhutanese roofs were using wooden
shingles as roofing materials before changing to CGI sheets roofing. As it is difficult to maintainsteeper roof slope because of the stones that fix the shingles would roll off the roof. Therefore, toprotect attic spaces and building earthen walls from rain and direct sunlight, traditional
Bhutanese roofs have large roof overhang.
According to the survey and research report on traditional Bhutanese houses prepared by
Chiba Institute of Technology (CIT), Japan in collaboration with Ministry of Works and Human
Settlement (MoWHS), Bhutan mentioned, that traditional Bhutanese roof has wide eaves toprotect the rammed earth wall from rain. The wide over hang roof blocks direct sunlight and cool
down the room in summer. Traditional Bhutanese roofs are constructed on top of rammed earth
walls, like Japanese traditional store houses. The open space between attic floor and roof
sheathing are used for dying cow fodders and grains. It acts as ventilation for the roof.
The report stated that there are two common roofs; gable roof and monitor roof between
Japan and Bhutan. This report mentioned that traditional Bhutanese roof has not changed a lot
and as compared to China and Japan, whereby they need to adapt with the climate ranging fromsub-tropical to sub-arctic. Therefore, a roof in China and Japan has a strong connection withclimate-based cultures.
As per the Bhutanese Architecture Guidelines, (2014) there are four types of roofs in
Bhutanese architecture i.e are Jabzhi roof, Jamthok roof, Drangim roof and Chenkhep roof. The

5

Jabzhi roof is a square hipped roof with four corners and this roof is used in the high statusbuilding like Dzong (fortress) and palaces in Bhutan as shown in Figure 1. The hip and gable roof,
Jamthok, Drangim, Gung-nim (gable) and Chenkhep (lean-to roof) roofs are used for the
residential roofs in Bhutan as shown in Figure 2 to Figure 8.

Figure 1: Jabzhi roof with CGI sheet roofing

Figure 2: Traditional Bhutanese gable roof with shingle roofing

6

Figure 3: Gable roof with corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheet

Figure 4: Hip + gable roof with CGI sheet roofing

Figure 5: Drangim roof with CGI sheet roofing

7

Figure 6: Jamthok roof with CGI sheet roofing

Figure 7: Ura Village with Jamthok roof

Figure 8 : Lean-to roof with shingle roofing (L) and CGI sheet roofing (R)8

2.1.2

Types of Bhutanese Roof Materials

Bhutanese traditional roofing materials were mostly the wooden shingles and slates (figure 9)
in the eastern, central and western part of Bhutan until the early 1960s. Some parts of central
and southern part were roofed with bamboo mat, leaves or straw. Based on the surrounding
environment and climatic condition of the region, the roofing materials were selected.
As mentioned in the Lotay (2013) master thesis report, the change of the roofing materials
started from early 1980s in the rural places in Bhutan.
As of now, most of the rural home roofing materials are changed to light roofing materials
like CGI sheets due to affordable, durable and less maintenance. Also government encourages
the rural people to use the CGI sheets by giving the tax exemption to reduce the pressure on thetimber use. Without the proper research on the use of CGI sheet metal as roofing materials forthe rural home roofs in Bhutan. Rural home roofs suffering the huge damages during thewindstorm.

Figure 9 : Wooden shingles (L) and slate roofing (R)9Figure 10 : Thatched roofing (L) and bamboo mat (R)Figure 11: Banana leaves roofing (source: DoC, 2010)

Figure 12: Corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheet metal roofing10

2.1.3

Bhutanese Traditional Roof Configurations

As per the Lotay, (2013) research, he mentioned that the common Bhutan rural house roofs
are gable roofs, which consist of heavy tie beam heavy tie beams supported with series ofvertical struts below and above the beam. Purlins are laid parallel to the roof ridge andperpendicular to the rafters. The circular or square battens are laid over the rafters with a
200mm-300mm interval and the battens are tightened or fastened to the rafters using toe-nails or
wires. Then, CGI sheets are laid over the battens and CGI sheets are nailed or screwed to prevent
uplift. The weight from CGI sheets and purlins are supported by a series of vertical struts andtransferred to attic floor or end walls. By varying the height of the struts and adjusting the battens,
purlins and rafters, roof angles are created.

Figure 13: Bhutanese traditional roof configuration (source: CIT, 2010)
As per the Bhutanese Architecture Guidelines (2014), it described the Jamthok roof in
Bhutanese traditional roof consists of a smaller gable which is litter raised above the larger andlonger gable roof as shown in figure 14. The upper layer at the central part of the roof gives themore space area under the roof to store or to give more ventilation. Also the Jamthok roof with
open space without window is called Lung-go, which means wind passage.
11

It was observed that these types of roofs are used in the region where they experiencesvery strong wind.

Figure 14: Jamthok roof configuration

Figure 15: Hip + gable roof tie beam (left) and rafter (right) layout

12Figure 16 : Hip + gable roof configuration with CGI roofing

Figure 17: Jamthok roof tie beam layout

13

Figure 18 : Jamthok roof configuration with CGI sheet roofing

2.2

Japanese Traditional Roof Types, Material and Configurations

2.2.1 Types of Japanese Traditional Roofs
Japanese traditional architecture is well known for having an interesting roof design andvery complex roof form in the Japanese architecture. Japanese traditional houses are built
mostly by erecting the wooden columns on the flat packed earth ground or flat stones.
One of the unique characteristics of Japanese traditional houses is the houses havetremendous variety of roof styles, depending on the locality and the occupation of the owner.
Also houses have large roof and deep eaves to protect the house from the hot summer sun andrainstorm. As mentioned in the open-air museum of old Japanese farmhouses, there are many
types of Japanese roof types and farmhouse from Yamato Tosukawa, Nara has the large eaves toprotect the house from strong wind and rain (Figure 19).

14

Figure 19: Farmhouse from Yamato Totsukawa, Nara with large eaves
The Japanese traditional roofs are classified into three types (Figure 20, Figure 21 & Figure22) as follows:
1. Yosemune (hip roof)
2. Kirizuma (gable roof)
3. Irimoya (hip and gable roof)
In the Japanese architecture of roofs, the gable roof (kirizuma) and hip roof (yosemune) are
the two basic form of roof. The gable roof is composed of two inclined planes, parallel to theridge of the roof. The hip roof is composed of four inclined planes, two inclined are parallel tothe ridge of the roof and other two inclined planes are perpendicular to the ridge of roof forming
the triangular shape.

15

Figure 20: Hip roof (yosemune)

Figure 21 : Gable roof (kirizuma) with thatched roofing (L) and cryptomeria bark roofing (R)Figure 22 : Hip and gable roof (irimoya)

16

2.2.2 Japanese Traditional Roof Materials
Japanese traditional roofing materials are classified under four main types as follows:
1. Tile2. Thatch
3. Plank or shingle
4. Bark
As per the Piccinini, (2003) the thatch, planks, shingles, barks and clay or copper tiles, a richvariety of roofing materials that has been used in the Japanese traditional architecture. It statedthat tile has long history in Japan, the concave and convex tile (hongawara) was introduced inJapan around 538 AD along with Buddhism (Figure 23). Tiles in Japan were introduced based on
the example of bamboo roofing in Indian and China (Figure 23). As per the Piccinini, (2003)
planks, shingle and bark are the main three types of wood roofing materials in Japan. The sizesof the planks are 450 to 600mm long and 90 to 150mm wide with the thickness of 6 to 18mm.
The slope of the roof are maintained about 20 degrees to prevent the stones rolling down fromthe roof.

Figure 23: Concave and convex tile (L) and bamboo roofing (R) (Source: Piccinini, 2000)
17

The base tiles (hiragawara) are laid with the concave side facing up and semicircular tiles(marugawara) are placed over the concave tile. Tile roofing is heavy and need strong support theloads from the roof. There are also different types of tiles called kawara (Figure 24).

Figure 24: Types of kawara
In 17th century, the Kyoto pan tile (sangawara) was developed in the S shape, which gives goodfunction for combination between base tile and cover tile. The S shape tile (Figure 25) requires
less clay to prepare as compared to concave and convex tile. Therefore, S shape tile was muchlighter than concave and convex tile. Also house with shingled roofing can be replaced using the
S shape tile without changing the roof framework.
As per the Tsuruga Co. Ltd about 50% of Japanese houses used kawara as a roofing
materials, which is made from natural materials and use of ceramic roofing tiles on Japanesehouses since ancients times around 1400 years ago. It described that kawara have continuously
evolved to possess with new additional features with the time change. In the recent time, the newfeatures were incorporated in the kawara to withstand earthquakes, typhoons and heat insulation.

Figure 25: Pan tiles (sangawara) and its layout
18

One of the widespread roofing materials in Japan is thatch roof (Figure 26). It is light anddoes not require heavy truss framework to support, which became most economic roofing
materials in Japan as compared to tiles roofing.

Figure 26: Thatch roofing
In the Sado Island of Niigata, people still used the wooden shingles with the stone over it
to protect from the strong winds blowing in off the Sea of Japan (Figure 27).

Figure 27: Shingle or plank roofing in Sado Island Niigata (photo courtesy: Brian Southwick)19

Figure 28: Bark roofing
2.2.3 Japanese Traditional Roof Configurations
The Japanese traditional roof has a unique roof configurations and they used all different
lengths of members which can be spanned with equal-sized members (Engel, 1985). There are
four main types of roof trusses in the Japanese traditional roofs (Figure 29 & Figure 30):
Wagoya-gumi, Sasu-gumi, Shintsua-gumi and Noboribari-gumi. The Japanese truss (Wagoyagumi) uses the series of vertical posts and mainly used for shingled or tiled roofing materials,
which provides maximum supports along the slope and prevents from sagging. The brace truss(Sasu-gumi) is the triangular in shape and used for thatched roofs. The trusses are braces crossand the ridgepole is rest on the fork. The king post truss (Shintsuka-gumi) uses king posts which
are vertical below the ridgepole and these types of trusses are used for shingled and tiled roofs.
The rising beam truss (Noboribari-gumi) has the transverse beams below the purlins which
eliminate many vertical posts which creates large space below the roof. These types of truss areused for shingled and tiled roofs.

20

Figure 29: Japanese truss (Wagoya-gumi) (left) and brace truss (Sasu-gumi) (right) (Source:
Piccinini, 2003)

Figure 30: King post truss (Shintsuka-gumi) (left) and rising beam truss (Noboribari-gumi)(right) (Source: Piccinini, 2003)

Figure 31 : Hip roof (light) and gable roof configuration (right) (Source: Engel, 1985)

21

2.3

Wind Characteristics and Wind Direction in the South Asia Region
As per the Tamura & Cao (2010), “wind is fundamentally caused by the temperature

gradient of the atmosphere due variable solar heating of the earth’s surface. It is initiated, in amore immediate sense, by density difference or pressure gradient between points of equal
elevation. Large-scale air flows are so-called global atmospheric circulations, and generation ofstrong winds is closely related to these circulations and also to smaller scale temperature
differences.” The paper also stated that there are several causes to the strong wind due windclimates, e.g. monsoons, frontal depressions, tropical cyclones, gust-front, downburst, tornadoes
and so on. Even in the south Asian region, the summer monsoons and winter monsoons which
are seasonal wind movement causing sometimes cyclone or windstorm in the region Figure 32.
Wind always flow from the high to low pressure zone. During the change of the season, Bhutansuffers from strong wind due to the pressure different in the north and south zones. In winter thehigh pressure zone is created in the northern Himalayan region and low pressure created inIndian Ocean, which bring cold strong wind from north to south and vice-versa in summer asshown in figure 32.
Tropical cyclones are intense cyclonic storms which occur in the tropical ocean areas,
mostly in summer and early autumn. It is caused due to the severe low pressure systems. As per
the FM Global, (2001) stated that they are called different names based on the location ofincidents. “In the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the United States, these storms are called
hurricanes, but in the West Pacific (China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan),they are known as typhoons. And, in the South Pacific (Australia, Fiji, Samoa) and Indian Ocean,they are called cyclones.” In the case of windstorm, it is caused by the pressure different
causing strong, violent winds without precipitation.

22

Figure 32: Summer (L) and winter monsoon (R) in the South Asia region (Source:
www.pearsonhighered.com)
2.4

Different Scales of Windstorms
As per the Bhandari, Krishna, Kumar, & Gupta, (2005) there are various scale to measure

the windstorm depending on the wind speed as shown in Table 1. During the 2011 & 2013
windstorm in Bhutan, the maximum gust wind speed of 22.0m/s and 24.4m/s was recorded
respectively at the 10m above ground level as per the Department of Civil Aviation. Therefore, it
is also important to check the Bhutan windstorm effect with other scale around the region.
Table 1: Various scales for measuring windstorms (Source: IS 875 (part 3))23

As per the IS 875 (part 3) the various scales for measuring wind storms are tabulated inTable 1, which shows 2011 & 2013 windstorm of Bhutan falls under the strong gale as per the
Beaufort scale but as per the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale and Fujita Tornado Scale, it fallunder weak wind speed.
According to the Tamura, (2005) the damage not only depends on the wind speed but
also the quality and strength of the structures. Therefore, various phenomena and damage
occurred on the structures due to strong winds based on the wind speed as tabulated in Table 2.
The 2011 & 2013 windstorm fall under the 30m/s of 3s gust wind speed, which described thedamage to garage shutters and falling down of pedestrians. As per the Fujita scale, Bhutan
windstorm fall under the F0 category, which described that there will be some damages tochimneys and breaks twigs off trees, pushes with shallow roots trees. Therefore, damages Bhutan
faced during the windstorm falls under the F1 & F2 as per the Fujita scale (Table 3), which
described the wind speed as 33-50m/s and 51-71m/s respectively.
Table 2: Various damages based on wind speed (Tamura, 2005)

24

Table 3: Fujita scale of wind speed and various damages originally formulated by Fujita in
1971(Doswell III, 2003)

2.5

History of Wind-Related Disasters around the World
According to Munich Reinsurance, (2013) study stated that out of 905 documented loss

events, 840 events were weather-related i.e storms, floods and climatological events covering
93% and remaining 7% was caused by the earthquake. As shown in the Figure 34, the number ofnatural disaster around the world between 1980 and 2011, the average of 86% were weatherrelated and 14 geo-physical events. As shown in the Figure 33, one of the most economic loss
contributors is the windstorm causing around 59% of overall losses (Re, 2013).

Windstorm

Figure 33: Overall Losses due natural disaster around the world (Munich Reinsurance, 2013)25

Figure 34: Graph showing the number of natural disaster around the world between 1980 and2012 (Re, 2013)
The trend of windstorm disaster is also increasing in Bhutan from 2011(Figure 35) but
there was no data record of windstorm till 2011. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether
windstorm trend is really increasing in Bhutan or not due to lack of past windstorms data. During
the 2011 and 2013 the windstorm thousands of rural homes roof were damaged in Bhutan

No. of events

causing huge loss to the government for the insurance compensation.

6
5
4
3
2
1
0

Landslide
GLOF
Flood
Fire
Windstorm
Earthquake
Year

Figure 35: Graph showing the natural disasters in Bhutan from 1994-2014
26

17%

10%

Earthquake

4%

Windstorm
Fire
31%

14%

Flood
GLOF
Landslide24%

Figure 36: Showing the percentage of natural disaster occurred till 2014
As described in the Figure 36, one of the most natural disasters in the Bhutan iswindstorm covering around 31% of the events followed by the structure fire with 24%.
2.6

Wind Effects on the Roofing System
According to Morrison, (2010) the severe windstorm can cause significant damage to theinfrastructure. The wooden structures and roofs of residential are most vulnerable to windstorm
failure. The loads applied on the per roof connection are significantly larger than the mean
maximum capacity of individual connection, which indicates the significant load sharing in theroof. The failure of the roof will not initiate at the single connection. According to Mahaarachchi& Mahendran, (2009) from their field and laboratory investigations have shown that damage of
CGI sheet metal roofs occurred due to the failure of their connections during the strong wind. In
the rural home roofs in Bhutan, most of the connections between the CGI sheet metal and purlin
are connected by galvanized iron (GI) screw of 4-6 inches long and connection between purlin
and rafters are mostly connected by using toe – nails of 4 – 6 inches long of single nail. The
single nail connection can withstand the force up to 0.71 kN (Lee, 2008).

27

Wind damages have historically been dramatic causing losses of life and property around
the World and roof failure is one of the major wind induced failure during causing the major
insurance claims (AAWE, 1997).

Figure 37: Positive and negative wind pressure on roof (Lotay, 2013)
The wind flow around buildings creates both negative and positive fluctuations over a roof
system and wind pressure distribution varies over the roof. The high suction pressure are occurred at thecorner and perimeter due to the flow separations and vortex formation (Baskaran, Eng, Molleti,

Yew, & Eng, 2008).

Figure 38: External wind pressure pattern roof (source: www.nachi.org)

28

As described in the Figure 38, wind creates positive pressure at the windward side andsuction (-ve) pressure at the leeward side of the building. Also, the suction pressure is created on
the cladding which can cause the uplift of the roof claddings.
As per the Walker, (1975) the wind pressure on the low-rise buildings roof cladding
fluctuate very heavily due to the natural turbulence of wind near the ground and turbulence
induced by flow-building interaction. Therefore, he stated that the strong wind can cause thesevere fatigue damage to light-gauge steel roofing.
In a number of post disaster investigations on wind damages to low-rise buildings haverevealed that hip roofs performed better than gable roof during the strong wind events. The
performance of hip roof as compared to gable roof was due to the reduced aerodynamic loads
and spatial distribution and stated that peak wind induced pressure can be reduced approximately
50% as compared to gable roofs (Meecham, 1992).
As per the study carried out by Xu, Reardon, Mahlberg, & Henderson, (1996) on thecomparison of wind pressure, fatigue loading and fatigue damage to roof claddings on the hipand gable roof. They stated that gable roof suffered the worst suction pressure at the gable/ridge
junction, while the hip roof experiences the worst suction pressure at the ridge but hip roof
experiences less severe as compared to the gable roof. Regarding the fatigue damage to roof
cladding, they mentioned that it not only depends on the roof configuration but also the type ofsheeting. The hip roof experiences the less fatigue damage as compared to gable roof.

29

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLGY
3.1 Recent Windstorm Damages in Bhutan
In the present study qualitative and quantitative methods are used. The damage assessment
for the 2011 and 2013 windstorm damages are carried out based on the damage pictures andreport collected after the windstorm. The comparison was done between the 2011 windstorm and2013 windstorm based on the data collected. The data used in this assessment is primary datacollected from the Department of Disaster Management and survey carried out in December
2014 and January 2015 in four districts. In this study assessment is carried out based on the
failure modes of the rural home roofs and roofing features such as roof overhang, anchorage,
type of roof, connections, support string and roofing materials used based on the survey carriedout in four districts in Bhutan. The survey was carried out in four districts in Bhutan to assess the
mitigation incorporation during the reconstruction. In each districts, 15 households wereinterviewed based on the questionnaire prepared (Annex 1). The four districts (Figure 39) out of twenty districts were selected based on the location and 2011 and 2013
windstorm damages.

30Figure 39: Map showing the four districts
In the comparison study of roof connection between Bhutan and Japan, qualitative methods isused based on the joinery, roof configurations, overhang, roofing materials and anchorage.
3.2 Wind load Calculation and Pull-through Force per Connection of CGI Sheet Metal
As described in the Chapter 2, one of the common failures in rural home roofs in Bhutan isdue to the pull-through failure of connections. In the study conducted by Ramli, Majid, Chik,
Muhammad, & Deraman, (2014) on the pull-through failure of nail connection, they calculated
the equivalent static wind load using the Newton first law and hydrodynamic equations.
In this study to find the pull through force per connection is adopted based on the (Ramli etal., 2014) experiments. Based on the Ramli et al., (2014) experiments, the pull through force perconnection for the CGI sheet metal is calculated for the 2011 and 2013 windstorm. As mentioned
above the gust wind speed during the 2011 & 2013 is 22m/s and 24.4m/s respectively. Staticpressure from basic wind speed is calculated using the following equation.
q = 0.613*Vs2 (N/m2)
31

where,Vzwind speed (m/s)

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
4.1 Recent Windstorm Damages to Rural Home Roofs in Bhutan
The 2011 windstorm affected the seventeen districts (Lotay, 2013) and the 2013 December
windstorm affected the thirteen districts out of twenty districts in Bhutan. Both the windstorm
damage data is collected from the Department of Disaster Management (DDM).

32

Table 4: 2011 windstorm damages on rural home roofs in the seventeen districts in Bhutan

Table 5: 2013 windstorm damages on rural home roofs in the thirteen districts in Bhutan

33

No. of structure damaged

2600
2400
2200
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

Year 2011
Year 2013

Types of structure

Figure 40: Graph showing the 2011 and 2013 windstorm damage on different roof structures
The 2011 windstorm was the epoch-making turning-point for most of the Bhutanesecommunity to learn on the wind induced disaster. The windstorm damaged 2424 rural homeroofs in seventeen districts out of total damage of 2598 structures. As per the Department ofCivil Aviation (DCA), Bhutan wind record, the maximum gust wind speed was 22m/s at the 10m
height from the ground surface with one second time interval of recording. As shown in the
Table 4, during the 2011 windstorm the eastern region of Bhutan was affected more as comparedto the western region. In the case of December 2013 windstorm, western region was affected
more as compared to eastern region as shown in Table 5. The 2013 windstorm damaged 1017
rural home roofs in thirteen districts in Bhutan out of total damage of 1093 structures. The
maximum gust wind speed was 24.4m/s at the 10m height from the ground surface with one
second time interval of recording.

34

In the both the windstorms, the maximum damages were observed on the rural homeroofs. Even though the gust wind speed of 2013 windstorm was higher than 2011 windstorm but
the damages was comparatively less during the 2013 windstorm.
In the case of 2011 and 2013 windstorm, different mode failure of rural home roofs asshown in Figure 41 & Figure 42, it was observed that the common failure of the rural home roofs
in Bhutan was due to the poor connections, lack of anchorage system, roof-to-wall connection,
large overhang and inadequate timber sections. The failure mostly occurred at the gable roof
ends and roof ridge as you can see in the Figure 43.

Figure 41: Gable end and roof edge failure

Figure 42: Roof failure at roof ridge and over turning failure mode
35

Figure 43: Roof ridge failure during 2011 windstorm
During the 2011 and 2013 windstorms, one of the common failures in the rural homeroofs was observed at the roof ridge in the eastern part of Bhutan. It was observed that most of
the purlins and rafter was irregular circular timber, whereby the connection at the roof ridge is
not good. It was observed that the connection at the roof ridge is a simple lap joint with single
toe-nail connection but generally the roof ridge connection is done by the bamboo strap or string.
The irregular circular timber rafter makes difficult to secure tight connection at the roof ridge
and also the groove made in the circular rafter makes the timber section weak during the strong
wind to fail at the roof ridge as shown in Figure 44.

Figure 44: Roof ridge connection in rural home roof with deep groove and lap joint
36

In the case of 2013 windstorm damages, most of the failure was observed in theconnection between rafter to the tie-beam and purlin to the rafter, whereby the damages were
mostly full-blown off in the western region of Bhutan. The timber section used in the westernpart of Bhutan is much larger as compared to the eastern part of Bhutan roof. In the western partof Bhutan, roofs are constructed with circular timber rafters and square/rectangle timber for the
purlins but in the eastern region roofs are constructed mostly with circular timber or bamboo
rafter and circular timber or bamboo purlins. As you can see in Figure 45 &Figure 46, failure of roof was observed due to the connection failure between the rafters
and struts causing the full-blown off. The rural home roof of Bhutan is simply support on theattic floor, whereby there is no connection between the support and floor or wall. Therefore, it
was observed that most of the failures are due to lack of rigid connection between the
strut/support and attic floor and roof-to-wall connection.

Figure 45: Failure due the poor connection between rafters and struts causing full-blown off

37

Figure 46: Full-blown of rural home roof due to failure in the connections
One of the most failures in the 2011 and 2013 windstorm in the rural home roofs in
Bhutan was observed in the purlin section failure at the weak section or at the joint. Also, it wasobserved that most of the purlins used are rectangular timber section with dimension between
50mm and 100mm. Since the available purlin length in sawmill were between 3000mm and
3700mm. Therefore, simple lap joint or inclined joint (Figure 47) was used by the local carpenters, which is weak to resist the strong windpressure.

38

Figure 47: Purlin section failure (L) and joint failure (R)39

Figure 48: Weak lap joint at roof ridge (L) and purlin are not laid equally (R)As described in the Figure 41, one of the most common roof damages occurred at thegable ends during the windstorm. It was observed that most of the gable end roof has weakconnection especially between the purlins and rafters. The large roof overhang creates the highuplift pressure at the gable end. Since most of the rural home roofs of Bhutan has the roof
overhang between 950mm and 2500mm. As described in the Figure 37, the positive pressure andsuction pressure at the roof overhang; if the roof overhang is large the pressure at that point willcertainly increase and cause the damage at the roof end.

Figure 49: Gable roof end failure (L) and large roof overhang (R)40

No. of house

16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

0.5-1.0m
1.1-1.5m
1.6m-2.0m
2.1-2.5m

DaganaParo
PunakhaName of district

Sarpang

Figure 50: Graph showing the roof overhang in the four districts in Bhutan
Paro and Punakha is the district located in the western part of Bhutan, Dagana is locatedin the central part of Bhutan and Sarpang located in the southern part of Bhutan. It was observedthat the large roof overhang (<1.5m) found in the western part of Bhutan as compared to thesouthern part of Bhutan. In Sarpang, roof overhang is between 0.5m – 1.0m as shown in
Figure 50.
The large roof overhang in the Bhutanese rural homes roof has many advantages anddisadvantages. Since Bhutan experiences heavy rainfall from late June to September and steeper
roof slopes are not possible for the Bhutanese rural home roof. Therefore, to protect attic spaces
and walls from the rains and direct sunlight, the rural home roof have large roof overhang.
One of the common rural home roof failures was over-turning or sliding of roof cladding
components as shown in Figure 51. It was observed that rural home roofs are simply supported
on the attic roof and there is no rigid connect between roof-to-wall as shown in Figure 52. It wasobserved that the roof members are not connected rigidly with each other, instead each member
acts independently. Therefore, integrity of the roof structure is lost during the windstorm and41

causing the roof damage. As described in the graph (Figure 53), most of the rural home roofs in
the western and central part of Bhutan are simply supported

Figure 51: Sliding of roof (L) and over-turning of roof (R)Figure 52: Roof supports/struts are simply supported on the attic roof or wall42

No. of house

16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

Anchored to Cholo/Post wall
Anchored to roof floor
Simply supported

DaganaParo

PunakhaSarpang

Name of district

Figure 53: Graph showing the different type of roof-to-wall connection
4.2 Recent Survey on the Windstorm Damages in the four districts in Bhutan
The survey on the windstorm research was carried out mainly for the data collection on thedamages in the four districts, organized by the Department of Disaster Management under
National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA – II) project through UNDP support. The
core working group was formed for the windstorm research. The core working members arefrom various agency; Department of Engineering Services (DES), Department of Human
Settlement (DHS), Department of Culture (DoC), Department of School Education (DSE) and
Department of Disaster Management (DDM). The Paro district was selected as a pilot districtsite for survey and data collections on the windstorm damages. Since, in the 2011 and 2013
windstorms, 137 and 310 rural home roofs were damaged respectively in Paro. Other three
districts namely: Punakha, Dagana and Sarpang were selected based on the location and 2011 &2013 windstorm damages, taking the consideration of all types of roof representation in theregion. During the survey and data collections, it was observed that most of the failures of therural home roofs occurred due to the poor connection, anchorage, opening effect and large
overhang. The analysis of data was carried out for the four districts with the 15 households basedon the roof types, anchorage, roof overhang, and support string and roof-to-wall connections.
4312

Legend10
No. of house

Fully blown-off

8Half blown-off

6Partly blown-off

4

Gable

2

Gable + Hip
Monitor/Lung-go

0DaganaParo

PunakhaName of district

Sarpang

Figure 54: Graph showing the windstorm damage vs the type of roof in four districts
As described in the section 2.1.1, gable roof is one of the most common roofs in Bhutan,
gable + hip combine (usually called hip in Bhutan) and lung-go roof. It was observed that lunggo roof and gable + hip roof were commonly used in the western part of Bhutan. The gable andgable + hip roof were commonly used in the western, central and southern part of Bhutan. In thecase of roof damages during the 2011 & 2013 windstorm, it was observed that the most damage
was observed in the Punakha district with maximum full blown-off damage followed by Dagana

44

districtascompared

to

other

districts

as

shown

in

12

Legend10
No. of house

Fully blown-off
8Half blown-off

6Partly blown-off

4

Gable

2

Gable + Hip
Monitor/Lung-go

0DaganaParo

PunakhaSarpang

Name of district

Figure 54. As shown in the Figure 55, Punakha district has maximum simply supported
roof followed by Paro and Dagana district, which suffered full blown-off during the windstorm.
Also, the large roof overhang create a huge uplift pressure at the roof edges, which lead to thefailure of the roofs at the edges causing full blown-off or half blown-off in the rural home roof
during the windstorm. Most of the western part of Bhutan rural homes have large roof overhang
as compared to the central and southern part of Bhutan roofs.

45

Figure 55: Graph showing damage vs anchorage (L) and damage vs roof overhang (R)In the case of the use of support strings and different types of connection materials usedin the rural home roofs. It was observed that most of the western and central part of Bhutan roofs
used the support strings as compared to the southern part of Bhutan roofs. The roofs in thesouthern part of Bhutan were anchored to the wall or post, therefore there do not use the support
strings as shown in Figure 56. Also most of the connection between the Corrugated Galvanized
Iron (CGI) sheet metal and the purlin members are connected using galvanized iron (GI) screws.
The connection between purlins and rafters are done by single toe-nails of 4 - 6 inches long andobserved that most of the connections are not done properly as described in
Figure 47 & Figure 48.

46

Figure 56: Graph showing the damage vs support string (L) and damage vs connection (R)
4.3 Static Wind Load and Pull through Load Calculation on the CGI Sheet Metal
As described in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, most of the rural homes in Bhutan are considered
as non-engineered structures and common roofing materials as a corrugated galvanized iron
(CGI) sheet metal. However there is no construction manual or guidelines on how the CGI sheet
metals are assemble in our Bhutanese traditional roofing system. Therefore, it was observed thatin the 2011 & 2013 windstorm, most of the roof damages occurred due to the pull-throughfailure of the CGI sheet metals. Based on the Ramli et al., (2014) experiments, the pull throughforce per connection for the CGI sheet metal is calculated for the 2011 and 2013 windstorm. As
mentioned above the gust wind speed during the 2011 & 2013 is 22m/s and 24.4m/s respectively.

47

Table 6: Pull through force per connection (Ramli et al., 2014)

Static pressure from basic wind speed is calculated using the following equation.
q = 0.613*Vs2 (N/m2) ……………………………………………………………………..(2)where,
Vz

wind speed (m/s)

In this study wind speed of 22m/s & 24.4m/s is adopted as per the 2011 & 2013 windstorm
respectively.
(i)q = 0.613*(22)2 = 296.69 N/m2…………………..2011 windstorm(ii)

q = 0.613*(24.4)2 = 364.96 N/m2…………………2013 windstorm

Table 7: Pull through force per connection (Ramli et al., 2014)

Wind
speed
(m/s)
32.5
28
24.4
23
22
17
13

Spacing
between nailconnection
ESWL(kN/m2)
0.65
0.48
0.36
0.32
0.3
0.2
0.1

0.3m

0.45m

0.6m

0.9m

0.4
0.39
0.39
0.39
0.39
0.39
0.38

Force (kN)
0.49
1.18
0.43
1.15
0.4
1.13
0.39
1.12
0.38
1.1
0.35
1.09
0.32
1.08

1.46
1.33
1.17
1.21
1.19
1.11
1.04

48

Remarks

2013 windstorm
2011 windstormAs per the study conducted by Lee (2008) the maximum load before the pull through failure
was recorded as 0.71kN. Also it was observed that with the increase of distance between the nailconnections, the force acting on the connection increases as shown in the Ramli et al. (2014)
experiment (Table 6). In most of the rural home roofs in Bhutan, the connections between thenails were observed at 600mm – 800mm for the CGI sheet width 1220mm and 500mm – 650mm
for the CGI sheet width 910mm. It was also observed that most of the rural home roofs use the
CGI sheet width of 1220mm. In the Ramli et al. (2014) study, they interpolated the Lee (2008)
maximum load in their pull through force per connection and found that it occur at the spacing of
480mm of nail connection.
Therefore, most of the rural home roofs of Bhutan have the nail connection spacing greaterthan 500mm (Table 7) which is greater the Ramli et al. (2014) and Lee (2008) experiment result.
Therefore, most the rural home roofs have chances of failure due to pull-through failure during
the windstorm in the near future. Also, during the 2011 & 2013 windstorms the failure of theroof could be one of the pull-through failures.
4.4 Mitigations and Counter Measures for the Rural Home Roofs
4.4.1 Roof Type Selection
As described in the Chapter 2 section 2.1.1, most of the rural homes roofs in Bhutan aregable roof or hip + gable roof. Therefore, it is important to select the roof type during theconstruction. There is misunderstanding of hip roof in Bhutan, actually the hip roof in Bhutan are
hip + gable combined. Therefore, the most suitable roof in Bhutan is hip roof with small
overhang, if using CGI sheet metal as roofing materials. As per the windstorms, damage andguidelines for mitigation measures, the Bhandari, Krishna, & Kumar (2005) stated that hip roof49

gets the low uplift pressure, which performance good during strong wind as compared to otherroof types as shown in figure 57.

Figure 57: Roof type effect on uplift pressure (Bhandari et al., 2005)
4.4.2 Roof Configurations and Connections
Bhutanese roof members act as independently and do not act as a rigid during the windstorm.
Therefore, it is important to make the roof rigid by making the tie beam, rafter, purlin androofing materials firmly connected using the wooden bracing or nail connections. Taking theexample of Japanese roof, the rafters and purlins can be connected using the wires, straps orropes as shown Figure 58.

50

Figure 58: Japanese thatched roof connection using ropes

Figure 59: Use of support string (L) and metal straps (R) during the reconstruction in Paro
The use of support string helps to hold down the roof structure to prevent from the upliftduring the windstorm. The support string should be anchored to the ground to withstand the windpressure. As shown the in figure 59, the use of metal straps to connect the purlin to rafter andthen to struts to reduce the uplift of roof during windstorm.

51

Figure 60: Most likely locations of roof damages (Source: Points to Note for Wind Resistant
Design in Philippines, Tamura)
As you can see from the Figure 60, most likely locations of roof damages during the strong
wind are at the gable end, corners and roof ridge. Therefore, it is important to fix these locations
to reduce the damages during the strong wind. Following the few mitigation measures:
1. Use of gable end, corner and roof ridge stiffener as shown in Figure 62
2. Bracing the roof members as shown in Figure 62
3. Bracing the large roof overhangs > 450mm or avoid large roof overhang52

4. Use of 10-20kg sand bags as shown in
5. Figure 61
6. Use of support string or guy-wire or ropes (Figure 59 & figure 61)
7. Use of G.I hook, G.I coach screw square head and G.I crank bolt (figure 63)
8. Use of metal straps Figure 59
9. Use of sufficient side laps and end laps as shown in Figure 63
10. Use of rubber washer instead of bitumen washer

53

Figure 61: Support string or guy-wire or rope and sand bags (L) and wooden shingle over CGI
sheet metal with stone (R)Figure 62: Gable end stiffener, roof ridge stiffener, corner stiffener and overhang ties (L) andadditional purlins & bracing (R)54Figure 63: Laps in CGI sheet metal and types of hooks & bolt (source: Tata steel limited)55

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS
5.1 Comparison of Bhutan and Japan Roofs
The comparison of the rural home roof of Bhutan and Japanese traditional roofs were carriedout based on the literature review and site visit as shown in
Table 8. In the case of the roof types, there is lot of similarity in the roofs and common roof
types are gable, gable + hip roofs. It was observed that gable + hip roof type in Japan fully closed
as compared to the Bhutanese roof, where there keep the triangular shape in the roof as an open
for wind passage. Most of the Japanese roofs used tiles for the residential houses, which is heavy
as well as wind resistant as compared to Bhutan roof with CGI sheet metal which is very lightand vulnerable during the strong wind. One of the most different between Bhutan and Japan roofis the roof overhang. It was observed that Bhutanese roof has large overhang as compared toJapanese roofs. The Japanese roofs are anchored or connected rigidly to the main structures ascompared to the Bhutanese roof, which is simply supported on the roof floor and vulnerable
during the strong wind. Therefore, it was observed that the Japanese roof is more wind resistantas compared to Bhutanese roofs.
Table 8: Comparison of Japanese and Bhutanese roofs
Sl
No.
1

Descriptions
Type of roof

2

Type of roof material

3

Roof configuration

Bhutangable, gable + hip roof
(combined), lean roof, Jamthok(monitor) roof & etc.
corrugated galvanized iron
(CGI) sheet metal, shingles,
thatch, banana leaves, bamboo,
slates & etc.
roof members act independently
and no rigid connections
56

Japan
gable(kirizum),
hip(yosemune), gable + hip(irimoya), hogyo roof and etc.
tiles, thatch, plank, shingles,bark & etc..

members are connected rigidly
using the screws or bolt or4

Roof overhang

between members.
large roof overhang (500mm2500mm)

5

Roof angle

roof slope between 12 °- 15°

6

Trusses specification

7

Roof-to-wallconnection

square or rectangular shape tie
beam, timber batten purlin,
circular rafters
simply supported

nails
less roof overhang (around 0 –1500mm) usually around
600mm
roof slope various based on thelocation, e.g. in the snowy
areas, roof slope is steep
most members are circulartimberrigid connections using bolt or
nails

5.2 Recent Windstorm Damages
Based on the 2011 and 2013 windstorm damages, assessment was carried out using thereports and damaged pictures. As per the recent natural disaster in Bhutan, windstorm was one of
the most frequent hit disasters compared to other natural disasters. Gable roof is one of thecommon rural home roofs in Bhutan, which is weak during the strong wind as compared to hip
roof. From the 2011 and 2013 windstorms, it was learned that rural home roofs are very
vulnerable during the strong wind. During 2011 windstorm, 93.30% damaged were rural homeroofs as compared to other public structure 6.7%. During 2013 windstorm, 93.05% damaged
were rural home roofs as compared to other public structures 6.95%.
Therefore, Bhutan rural home roofs are highly vulnerable to strong wind due to its weakconnections or joinery, large overhang, inadequate timber sections, non-engineered roof member
configurations over the new roofing materials and no roof-to-wall connections. In the bothwindstorms, failure mode is similar since most of the structures failed due to the gable roof end
or edge failure, roof ridge failure, pull through failure and over turning of roof failure causing thefull-blown off.

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CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1 Conclusions
In this study, Bhutan rural home roof was assessed based on two windstorms in Bhutan using
the damage reports and damage pictures. Also, post damage survey was carried out in four
districts to assess the past damages and reconstructions. A comparative study was carried out
between Japan and Bhutan roof based on the roof type, roof materials, connections, roof
overhang and roof configurations. Based on the literature review and calculations of the damages,
following conclusions were drawn:
1. Most of the Bhutan rural home roofs were gable roof type with large roof overhang
between 500mm and 2500mm. It was found that gable roof is weak during the windstorm
especially with the large roof overhang.
2. The light weight corrugated galvanized iron (CGI) sheet metal was used as roof materials
in most part of Bhutan. During the change of roofing material from shingle to CGI, roof
configuration was not much changed and causing the problem of full blown-off of roof
during the windstorm.
3. In the comparative study, it was concluded that Japanese traditional roof is well designed
and wind resistant as compared to Bhutanese roof. Japanese roof have rigid connections
between the members and roof is well connected to the foundation. In case of Bhutaneseroofs, all member acts independently and not connected to each other. Also, roof issimply supported on the roof floor.
4. One of the most failure during the two past windstorms in Bhutan, many roof failed dueto the pull-through failure. Since rural home roof nail connection spacing is between 500-58

600mm, which is greater than the recommended spacing of 480mm in the previous
research.
5. It was found that the western region roof has large overhang as compared to the roof ofcentral and southern region. Also, western region roof used support string to hold down
the roof as compared to the central and southern region roof, where roofs are anchored to
the walls.
6.2 Recommendations
In this study, Bhutan rural home roof was assessed based on the literature review and damage
reports of 2011 and 2013 windstorms. But it is not sufficient to conclude that Bhutan rural homeroofs are still unsafe during the windstorm. Therefore, in the future study, more experimental test
is required to conclude the behavior of Bhutan rural home roofs.
In this study, two windstorms were examined based on the reports but could not recommend
the best connections and joinery for rural home roofs. Therefore, it is important in the future
study to come up with the best connection details.
In this study, due to the time limit the large overhang was assessed based on the literature
review only and could not examined the real effect of the large overhang of Bhutan roof.
Therefore, it is important to examine the large roof overhang effect during the windstorm.

59

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