• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.295-306
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• 2019

Shanghai Tower is a 632-meter super high-rise building located in an area with wind and active earthquake. A sophisticated structural health monitoring (SHM) system consisting of more than 400 sensors has been built to carry out a long-term monitoring for its operational safety. In this paper, a reduced-order model including 31 elements was generated from a full model of this super tall building. An iterative regularized matrix method was proposed to tune the system parameters, making the dynamic characteristic of the reduced-order model be consistent with those in the full model. The updating reduced-order model can be regarded as a benchmark model for further analysis. A long-term monitoring for structural dynamic characteristics of Shanghai Tower under different construction stages was also investigated. The identified results, including natural frequency and damping ratio, were discussed. Based on the data collected from the SHM system, the dynamic characteristics of the whole structure was investigated. Compared with the result of the finite element model, a good agreement can be observed. The result provides a valuable reference for examining the evolution of future dynamic characteristics of this super tall building.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.99-107
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• 2021

This research investigates the potential of Adaptive TMDs for tall building damping. The Adaptive TMD under consideration is based on real-time controlled hydraulic dampers generating purely dissipative control forces. The control approach is designed to enhance the Adaptive TMD efficiency for moderate wind loads with return periods below 50 years. The resulting enhanced TMD efficiency is used to reduce the pendulum mass by 15% compared to the passive TMD while still guaranteeing the acceleration limits of the one and ten year return period winds. Furthermore, the adaptive control approach is designed to disproportionally increase the controlled damping force at wind loads with return periods of 50 years and more in order to reduce the maximum relative motion of the Adaptive TMD with only 85% pendulum mass. Compared to the passive TMD with 100% pendulum mass the maximum relative motion is reduced by 20%. Both the pendulum mass reduction and the maximum relative motion reduction significantly reduce the foot print of the Adaptive TMD which is highly desirable from the economic point of view.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.77-84
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• 2017

Vortex-induced vibration and instability vibration of tall buildings are very important fluid-structure interaction phenomenon, and many fundamental questions concerning the influence of body movement on the unsteady aerodynamic force remain unanswered. For tall buildings, there are two experimental methods to investigate the characteristics of unsteady aerodynamic forces, one is forced vibration method and the other is free vibration method. In the present paper, a free vibration method was used to investigate the unsteady aerodynamic force on tall building whose aspect ratio is 9 under boundary layer simulating city area. Wind pressures on surfaces and tip displacements were measured simultaneously, and the characteristics of tip displacements and generalized forces were discussed. It was found that variation of across-wind displacements showed different trend between the case when wind speed increases and wind speed decreases, and the fluctuating generalize forces in across-wind direction of vibrating model are larger than that of static model near the resonant wind speed and approach to the static value. And for higher wind speed range, there were two peaks in across-wind power spectra of generalize forces of vibrating model, which means that two frequency components are predominant in unsteady aerodynamic forces.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.153-178
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• 2008

Based on the empirical formulas for power spectra of generalized modal forces and local fluctuating wind forces in across-wind and torsional directions, the wind-induced lateral-torsional coupled response analysis of a representative rectangular tall building was conducted by setting various parameters such as eccentricities in centers of mass and/or rigidity and considering different torsional to lateral stiffness ratios. The eccentricity effects on the lateral-torsional coupled responses of the tall building were studied comprehensively by structural dynamic analysis. Extensive computational results indicated that the torsional responses at the geometric center of the building may be significantly affected by the eccentricities in the centers of mass and/or rigidity. Covariance responses were found to be in the same order of magnitude as the along-wind or across-wind responses in many eccentricity cases, suggesting that the lateral-torsional coupled effects on the overall wind-induced responses can not be neglected for such situations. The calculated results also demonstrated that the torsional motion contributed significantly to the total responses of rectangular tall buildings with mass and/or rigidity eccentricities. It was shown through this study that the framework presented in this paper provides a useful tool to evaluate the wind-induced lateral-torsional coupled responses of rectangular buildings, which will enable structural engineers in the preliminary design stages to assess the serviceability of tall buildings, potential structural vibration problems and the need for a detailed wind tunnel test.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2016

The structural efficiency of tall buildings heavily depends on the lateral stiffness and resistance capacity. Among those structural systems for tall buildings, outrigger system is one of the most common and efficient systems especially for those with relatively regular floor plan. The use of outriggers in building structures can be traced back from early 50 from the concept of deep beams. With the rise of building height, deep beams become concrete walls or now in a form of at least one story high steel truss type of outriggers. Because of the widened choice in material to be adopted in outriggers, the form and even the objective of using outrigger system is also changing. In the past, outrigger systems is only used to provide additional stiffness to reduce drift and deflection. New applications for outrigger systems now move to provide additional damping to reduce wind load and acceleration, and also could be used as structural fuse to protect the building under a severe earthquake condition. Besides analysis and member design, construction issue of outrigger systems is somehow cannot be separated. Axial shortening effect between core and perimeter structure is unavoidable. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review on the outrigger system in tall buildings including development history and applications of outrigger systems in tall buildings. The concept of outrigger system, optimum topology, and design and construction consideration will also be discussed and presented.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.387-396
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• 2020

While tall buildings are an essential building type to accommodate an ever-growing urban population, as buildings become taller and taller, many design challenges arise. As floor spaces are repeated vertically, the occupants' natural horizontal circulation-based social interactions are limited. As buildings become ever taller, safe evacuation to the ground level becomes more challenging in emergencies. With respect to safety as well as serviceability, one of the most fundamental design challenges of exceedingly tall buildings is their structural systems that make the physical existence of tall buildings possible. While many different design solutions can be sought to resolve these issues as well as other design challenges of extremely tall buildings, this paper investigates the potential of conjoined towers to create more livable and sustainable vertical environments. Emphasis is placed on the social and structural capabilities of conjoined towers in providing enhanced social interactions and more efficient ultra-tall structures. The related brief history of conjoined towers is presented. To understand their current status, contemporary design practices of conjoined towers are discussed. Lastly, a new concept of superframed conjoined towers developed for exceedingly tall building complexes is introduced through design studies. Though envisioning future tall buildings is challenging, conjoined towers can be among the strong candidates toward more livable and sustainable vertical urbanism.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.285-296
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• 2014

The objective of optimization is to present a design process that minimizes the total material consumption while satisfying current codes and specifications. In the research an optimization formulation for RC shear wall structures is proposed. And based on conceptual design methodology, an optimization process is investigated. Then optimal design techniques and specific explanations are introduced for residential buildings with shear wall structure, especially for that with a rectangular layout. An example of 30-story building is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimal design process. Furthermore, the influence of aspect ratio on the concrete consumption and the steel consumption of the superstructure are analyzed for this typical RC shear wall structure; and their relations are obtained by regressive analysis. Finally, the optimal material consumption is suggested for the residential building with RC shear wall structure and with rectangular layout. The relation and the data suggested can be used for guiding the design of similar RC shear wall structures.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.51-59
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• 2022

The 43 story, 178m tall Atlantis The Royal Resort and Residences tower nearing completion on the Palm in Dubai is a unique project in terms of its overall scale, geometry and form. The tower superstructure has a long narrow curved floor plan, measuring 400m in length above the podium with significant long span bridge structures forming voids and cantilevered blocks. This paper describes the innovative structural design solutions adopted and the construction solutions adopted by the Contractor to realize the Architectural vision.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.423-441
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• 2014

The high frequency base balance (HFBB) technique is a convenient and relatively fast wind tunnel testing technique for predicting wind-induced forces for tall building design. While modern tall building design has seen a number architecturally remarkable buildings constructed recently, the characteristics of those buildings are significantly different to those that were common when the HFBB technique was originally developed. In particular, the prediction of generalized forces for buildings with 3-dimensional mode shapes has a number of inherent uncertainties and challenges that need to be overcome to accurately predict building loads and responses. As an alternative to the more conventional application of general mode shape correction factors, an analysis methodology, referred to as the linear-mode-shape (LMS) method, has been recently developed to allow better estimates of the generalized forces by establishing a new set of centers at which the translational mode shapes are linear. The LMS method was initially evaluated and compared with the methods using mode shape correction factors for a rectangular building, which was wind tunnel tested in isolation in an open terrain for five incident wind angles at $22.5^{\circ}$ increments from $0^{\circ}$ to $90^{\circ}$. The results demonstrated that the LMS method provides more accurate predictions of the wind-induced loads and building responses than the application of mode shape correction factors. The LMS method was subsequently applied to a tall building project in Hong Kong. The building considered in the current study is located in a heavily developed business district and surrounded by tall buildings and mixed terrain. The HFBB results validated the versatility of the LMS method for the structural design of an actual tall building subjected to the varied wind characteristics caused by the surroundings. In comparison, the application of mode shape correction factors in the HFBB analysis did not directly take into account the influence of the site specific characteristics on the actual wind loads, hence their estimates of the building responses have a higher variability.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 2012