Structural Design of Nakanoshima Festival Tower West that Achieved High-Grade Seismic Performance

This paper summarizes the structural concept and design of the "Nakanoshima Festival Tower West" in Osaka, Japan, which is 200m high and has a super-high damping system. Its superstructure is mainly composed of a central core and outer tube frames. It has a bottom truss structure at the boundary between the low-rise and mid-rise sections of the building, where the column arrangement is changed. Besides, the high-rise section of the building has a neck truss structure. These truss structures smoothly transfer the axial forces of the columns and reduce the flexural deformations induced by horizontal loads. Oil dampers with extremely high damping capacity are installed in the rigid walls named the "Big Wall Frames" of the low-rise section. Moreover, many braces and damping devices are well arranged in the center core of each story. The damping effects of these devices ensure that all structural members are remain within the elastic range and that story drifts are within 1/150 in large earthquakes. This super-high damping structure in the low-rise section is named the "Damping Layer". The whole structural system is named the "Super Damping Structure". The whole structural systems enhance the building's safety, comfort and Business Continuity Planning (BCP) under large earthquakes.