CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE METHODOLOGY ADOPTED BY CERTAIN CAMEROONIAN STUDIES FOR THE EVALUATION OF THE WIND SPEED: CASE OF THE ECONOMICAL CITY OF DOUALA

In the design of different types of building and storms, one takes often into account the action of the wind speeds and the requirement of the reference speed. The estimation of the reference is made by a statistical treatment of wind speeds recorded at meteorological stations. Some countries, such as France, have divided their territory into regions and proposed the reference velocity values to be adopted for each region. In Cameroon, in the absence of country-specific values, design offices adopt French values according to the topographical similarities between a French region and the Cameroon region where the Civil Engineering project will be built. To verify the validity of the process, we calculated the wind reference speed in the city of Douala on the basis of surveys carried out over a period of 40 years (1971- 2010) by applying the regulatory requirements. The value obtained is lower than that of the corresponding French region adopted by the consulting firms. It is also weaker than those adopted by some countries such as Algeria, South Africa or Belgium. This can be explained by the fact that Douala and Cameroon are in the so-called equatorial calm zone which is characterized by low-intensity winds.