Engineered structures such as buildings and bridges in certain regions of the world need to be designed to withstand tropical cyclone winds, otherwise known as typhoons or hurricanes. In order to carry out this design, it is necessary to be able to estimate the maximum wind speeds likely to be encountered by the structure over its expected lifetime, say 100 years. Estimation of the maximum wind involves not only the overall strength of the tropical cyclone, but the variation of wind speed with radius from the centre, circumferential position, and with height above the ground surface. In addition, not only the mean wind speed, but also the gust factor must usually be estimated as well. This paper investigates a number of recent mathematical models of tropical cyclone structure and comments on their suitability for these purposes in a variety of scenarios.