• Wind and Structures
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• 제21권2호
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• pp.159-182
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• 2015

This study focuses on the amplitude dependency of damping of tall structures by the random decrement technique (RDT). Many researchers have adopted RDT to establish the amplitude dependency of damping ratios in super-tall buildings under strong wind loads. In this study, a series of simulated examples were analyzed to examine the reliability of this method. Results show that damping ratios increase as vibration amplitudes increase in several cases; however, the damping ratios in the simulated signals were preset as constants. This finding reveals that this method and the derived amplitude-dependent damping ratio characteristics are unreliable. Moreover, this method would obviously yield misleading results if the simulated signals contain Gaussian white noise. Full-scale measurements on a super-tall building were conducted during four typhoons, and the recorded data were analyzed to observe the amplitude dependency of damping ratio. Relatively wide scatter is observed in the resulting damping ratios, and the damping ratios do not appear to have an obvious nonlinear relationship with vibration amplitude. Numerical simulation and field measurement results indicate that the widely-used method for establishing the amplitude-dependent damping characteristics of super-tall buildings and the conclusions derived from it might be questionable at the least. More field-measured data must be collected under strong wind loads, and the damping characteristics of super-tall buildings should be investigated further.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.253-283
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• 2011

This paper presents the field measurement results of wind effects on a super-tall building (CITIC Plaza, 391 m high) located in Guangzhou. The field data such as wind speed, wind direction and acceleration responses were simultaneously and continuously recorded from the tall building by a wind and vibration monitoring system during two typhoons. The typhoon-generated wind characteristics including turbulence intensity, gust factor, peak factor, turbulence integral length scale and power spectral density of fluctuating wind speed were presented and discussed. The dynamic characteristics of the tall building were determined based on the field measurements and compared with those calculated from a 3D finite element model of the building. The measured natural frequencies of the two fundamental sway modes of the building were found to be larger than those calculated. The damping ratios of the building were evaluated by the random decrement technique, which demonstrated amplitude-dependent characteristics. The field measured acceleration responses were compared with wind tunnel test results, which were found to be consistent with the model test data. Finally, the serviceability performance of the super-tall building was assessed based on the field measurement results.

• 한국공간구조학회논문집
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.79-86
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• 2013

For most of recent tall buildings, one characteristic is that their building shapes vary with height such as taper and setback, and this implies that the distribution of their structural components may also vary with height. Because of these structural variations, although the sectional shapes of these buildings are symmetric, it is difficult to say whether or not they are structurally symmetric. The acceleration responses of structurally asymmetric tall buildings are larger than those of non-eccentric buildings, thus raising the possibility of problems during strong winds and typhoons. This paper describes wind tunnel tests carried out using building models with height variations and acceleration response analyses, and discusses the resulting response characteristics. For tapered and setback buildings, although the across-wind accelerations are larger than those of a square building, the total root-mean-square accelerations remain small because of smaller along-wind and torsional rms accelerations. And it was found that the effects of statistical couplings between along-wind force and other two forces are negligible.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제5권4호
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• pp.319-326
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• 2016

The ingenuity of structural engineers in the field of tall and super-tall buildings has led to some of the most remarkable inventions. During this evolution of structural engineering concepts in the last 100 years, the technical challenges that engineers encountered were extraordinary and the advances were unprecedented. However, as the accomplishments of structural engineers are progressing, the desire for taller and safer structures is also increasing. The diagrid structural system is part of this evolving process as it develops a new paradigm for tall building design combining engineering efficiency and new architectural expression. The first appearances of this type of tall buildings have already been constructed and the interest of both engineering and architectural communities is growing mainly due to the many advantages compared to other structural systems. This paper presents a simple approach on optimizing member sizes for the diagonals of steel diagrid tall buildings. The optimizing method is based on minimizing the volume of the diagonal elements of a diagrid structure. The constraints are coming from the stiffness-based design, limiting the tip deflection of the building to widely accepted regulative limits. In addition, the current paper attempts to open the discussion on the important topic of optimization and robustness for tall buildings and also studies the future of the diagrid structural system.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제9권3호
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• pp.245-253
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• 2020

With the ever-increasing height of timber buildings, the complexity of timber as a structural material gives rise to behaviors not previously studied by engineers. An urgent call is needed regarding their performance in damage scenarios: activating alternative load paths in tall timber buildings is not the same as in tall buildings made with steel and concrete. In this paper we propose a robustness framework covering all building materials, whose application in timber may lead to new conceptual designs for the next generation of tall timber buildings. Qualitatively, the importance of building scale and the distinction between localized and systematic exposures are discussed, and how existing supertall structures can be an example for future generations of tall timber buildings. Quantitatively, the robustness index is introduced alongside a method to calculate the performance of a given building regarding robustness, in order to find the most cost-effective structural solutions for improved robustness. A three-level application recommendation is made, depending on the importance of the building in question. Primarily, the paper highlights the importance of conceptual design to achieve structural robustness and encourages the practicing engineering community to use the proposed framework to quantitatively come up with the new generation of tall timber buildings.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제7권1호
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• pp.47-64
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• 2018

The last decade has seen great design opportunities for tall building construction around the globe. The best designs represent a new generation of skyscrapers that go beyond willful preconceptions of building form and iconography, trying instead to simultaneously address interrelated issues of program space utility, structural efficiency, and environmentally sustainable systems. The resulting identities of these towers are unique because of their search for the intersection of spaces tuned to people's needs, expressive optimized structures, and high performance, site-responsive systems. This paper, through examples of recent SOM towers, both built and unbuilt, will discuss how a design becomes content-driven, how ideas create value, and how the typology of the tall building is advanced through the integration of architecture design and engineering systems.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제11권6호
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• pp.925-942
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• 2016

With ongoing development of earthquake engineering research and the lessons learnt from a series of strong earthquakes, the seismic design concept of "resilience" has received much attention. Resilience describes the capability of a structure or a city to recover rapidly after earthquakes or other disasters. As one of the main features of urban constructions, tall buildings have greater impact on the sustainability and resilience of major cities. Therefore, it is important and timely to quantify their seismic resilience. In this work, a quantitative comparison of the seismic resilience of two tall buildings designed according to the Chinese and US seismic design codes was conducted. The prototype building, originally designed according to the US code as part of the Tall Building Initiative (TBI) Project, was redesigned in this work according to the Chinese codes under the same design conditions. Two refined nonlinear finite element (FE) models were established for both cases and their seismic responses were evaluated at different earthquake intensities, including the service level earthquake (SLE), the design-based earthquake (DBE) and the maximum considered earthquake (MCE). In addition, the collapse fragility functions of these two building models were established through incremental dynamic analysis (IDA). Based on the numerical results, the seismic resilience of both models was quantified and compared using the new-generation seismic performance assessment method proposed by FEMA P-58. The outcomes of this study indicate that the seismic resilience of the building according to the Chinese design is slightly better than that according to the US design. The conclusions drawn from this research are expected to guide further in-depth studies on improving the seismic resilience of tall buildings.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제8권4호
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• pp.275-281
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• 2019

The paper presents a generalization of existing analytical approaches to determine the across-wind aerodynamic damping of tall structures through the quasi-steady theory. The theory takes into account the nature of non-uniform wind, structural mode shapes and the variation of structural parameters. Numerical applications on a prototype high-rise building and a real sculptural tower point out that the common approach may be over simplified, giving rise to inappropriate predictions of the aerodynamic damping. The role of the structural mode shapes, usually being neglected for uniform structures, is then highlighted.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제10권3호
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• pp.229-242
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• 2021

Dynamic characteristics of tall building structures with double negative stiffness damped outriggers (2NSDO) are parametrically studied using the theoretical formula. Compared with one negative stiffness damped outrigger (1NSDO), 2NSDO can achieve a similar maximal modal damping ratio with a smaller negative stiffness ratio. Besides, the 2NSDO can improve the maximum achievable damping ratio to about 30% with less consumption of an outrigger damping coefficient compared with the double conventional damped outriggers (2CDO). Besides, the responses of structures with 2NSDO under fluctuating wind load are investigated by time-history analysis. Numerical results show that the 2NSDO is effective in reducing structural acceleration under fluctuating wind load, being more efficient than 1NSDO.

• 국제초고층학회논문집
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• 제2권1호
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• pp.63-77
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• 2013

In any subject area related to the provision of safety, failure is typically the most effective mechanism for evoking rapid reform and an introspective assessment of the accepted operating methods and standards within a professional body. In the realm of tall buildings the most notable failures in history, those of the WTC towers, widely accepted as fire induced failures, have not to any significant extent affected the way they are designed with respect to fire safety. This is clearly reflected in the surge in numbers of Tall Buildings being constructed since 2001. The combination of the magnitude and time-scale of the WTC investigation coupled with the absence of meaningful guidance resulting from it strongly hints at the outdatedness of current fire engineering practice as a discipline in the context of such advanced infrastructure. This is further reflected in the continual shift from prescriptive to performance based design in many parts of the world demonstrating an ever growing acceptance that these buildings are beyond the realm of applicability of prescriptive guidance. In order for true performance based engineering to occur however, specific performance goals need to be established for these structures. This work seeks to highlight the critical elements of a fire safety strategy for tall buildings and thus attempt to highlight some specific global performance objectives. A survey of tall building fire investigations is conducted in order to assess the effectiveness of current designs in meeting these objectives, and the current state-of-the-art of fire safety design guidance for tall structures is also analysed on these terms. The correct definition of the design fire for open plan compartments is identified as the critical knowledge gap that must be addressed in order to achieve tall building performance objectives and to provide truly innovative, robust fire safety for these unique structures.