• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.807-833
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• 2015

While tuned mass dampers are found to be effective in suppressing vibration in a tall building, integrating it with a semi-active control system enables it to perform more efficiently. In this paper a forty-story tall steel-frame building designed according to the Canadian standard, has been studied with and without semi-active and passive tuned mass dampers. The building is assumed to be located in the Vancouver, Canada. A magneto-rheological fluid based semi-active tuned mass damper has been optimally designed to suppress the vibration of the structure against seismic excitation, and an appropriate control procedure has been implemented to optimize the building's semi-active tuned mass system to reduce the seismic response. Furthermore, the control system parameters have been adjusted to yield the maximum reduction in the structural displacements at different floor levels. The response of the structure has been studied with a variety of ground motions with low, medium and high frequency contents to investigate the performance of the semi-active tuned mass damper in comparison to that of a passive tuned mass damper. It has been shown that the semi-active control system modifies structural response more effectively than the classic passive tuned mass damper in both mitigation of maximum displacement and reduction of the settling time of the building.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.397-413
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• 2018

Excitation mechanism of interference effect between two tall buildings is investigated with wind tunnel experiments. Synchronized building surface pressure and flow field measurements by particle image velocimetry (PIV) are conducted to explore the relationship between the disturbed wind flow field and the consequent wind load modification for twin buildings in tandem. This reveals evident excitation mechanisms for the fluctuating across-wind loads on the buildings. For small distance (X/D < 3) between two buildings, the disturbed flow pattern of impaired vortex shedding is observed and the fluctuating across-wind load on the downstream building decreases. For larger distance ($X/D{\geq}3$), strong correlation between the across-wind load of the downstream building and the oscillation of the wake of the upstream building is found. By further analysis with conditional sampling and phase-averaged techniques, the coherent flow structures in the building gap are clearly observed and the wake oscillation of the upstream building is confirmed to be the reason of the magnified across-wind force on the downstream building. For efficient PIV measurement, the experiments use a square-section high-rise building model with geometry scale smaller than the usual value. Interference factors for all three components of wind loads on the building models being surrounded by another identical building with various configurations are measured and compared with those from previous studies made at large geometry scale. The results support that for interference effect between buildings with sharp corners, the length scale effect plays a minor role provided that the minimum Reynolds number requirement is met.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.279-284
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• 2017

The purpose of structural health monitoring is to evaluate structural behavior due to various external loads through installation of appropriate measurement. Accordingly, a guideline for monitoring standards is necessary to evaluate the safety and performance of a structure. This paper introduces preliminary design of SHM for high-rise buildings, which is the stage creating a guideline. As for preliminary design of SHM, first step is to calculate the displacement and member force through structural analysis. After that, limitations or qualifications are proposed for management. Secondly, based on the results from first step, issues related monitoring such as monitoring method, measurement type, or installation location are determined. This method leads building managers to reasonably define the structural safety over the whole life cycle. Furthermore, this experience contributes to development of SHM forward and it is expected to be useful for other types of structures as well such as spatial structures or irregular buildings.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.55-62
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• 2011

While frequency of occurrence of terrorism has recently increased, it intensively occurs in buildings that many unspecified persons gather. Terrorism which occurs in high-rise buildings causes a lot of damage. It is necessary for design approach to reduce terrorism damage from explosive of buildings. Terror risk analysis of domestic tall and high-rise buildings is evaluated by fema 455, Rapid Visual Screening which is found to be comparatively simple and practicable. Common risk factors of terrorism in domestic buildings were investigated. The results of terror risk assessment of all buildings are found to be a medium risk score, Main reason is that domestic tall or high-rise buildings have similar external-environmental factors.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.553-574
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• 2009

This paper presents statistical analysis results of wind speed and atmospheric turbulence data measured from more than 30 anemometers installed at 15 different height levels on 325 m high Beijing Meteorological Tower and is primarily intended to provide useful information on boundary layer wind characteristics for wind-resistant design of tall buildings and high-rise structures. Profiles of mean wind speed are presented based on the field measurements and are compared with empirical models' predictions. Relevant parameters of atmospheric boundary layer at urban terrain are determined from the measured wind speed profiles. Furthermore, wind velocity data in longitudinal, lateral and vertical directions, which were recorded from an ultrasonic anemometer during windstorms, are analyzed and discussed. Atmospheric turbulence information such as turbulence intensity, gust factor, turbulence integral length scale and power spectral densities of the three-dimensional fluctuating wind velocity are presented and used to evaluate the adequacy of existing theoretical and empirical models. The objective of this study is to investigate the profiles of mean wind speed and atmospheric turbulence characteristics over a typical urban area.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.629-646
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• 2013

One of the most common solutions adopted to reduce vibrations of skyscrapers due to wind or earthquake action is to add external damping devices to these structures, such as a TMD (Tuned Mass Damper) or TLCD (Tuned Liquid Column Damper). It is well known that a TLCD device introduces on the structure a nonlinear damping force whose effect decreases when the amplitude of its motion increases. The main objective of this paper is to describe a Hardware-in-the-Loop test able to validate the effectiveness of the TLCD by simulating the real behavior of a tower subjected to the combined action of wind and a TLCD, considering also the nonlinear effects associated with the damping device behavior. Within this test procedure a scaled TLCD physical model represents the hardware component while the building dynamics are reproduced using a numerical model based on a modal approach. Thanks to the Politecnico di Milano wind tunnel, wind forces acting on the building were calculated from the pressure distributions measured on a scale model. In addition, in the first part of the paper, a new method for evaluating the dissipating characteristics of a TLCD based on an energy approach is presented. This new methodology allows direct linking of the TLCD to be directly linked to the increased damping acting on the structure, facilitating the preliminary design of these devices.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.79-88
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• 2016

Modular buildings are constructed by assembling modular units which are prefabricated in a factory and delivered to the site. However, due to a problem of noise between floors, concrete slab is usually poured at the top or bottom level of a modular unit in Korea. This greatly increases the weight of buildings, but designing vertical members of modular units to resist overall gravity loads is very inefficient. In this study, considering domestic building construction practices, feasible structural systems for tall modular buildings are proposed in which separate steel frames and reinforced concrete core walls are designed to resist gravity and lateral loads. To verify performance, a three-dimensional structural analysis has been performed with two types of prototype buildings, i.e., a residential building and a hotel. From the results, wind-induced lateral displacements and seismic story drifts are examined and compared with their limit values. Between the two kinds of buildings, the efficiency of the proposed system is also evaluated through a comparison of the weight of structural components. Finally, the effect of a floor diaphragm on the overall behavior is analyzed and discussed.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.61-80
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• 2002

Wind tunnel aeroelastic model tests of the Commonwealth Advisory Aeronautical Research Council (CAARC) standard tall building were conducted using a three-degree-of-freedom base hinged aeroelastic(BHA) model. Experimental investigation into the effects of coupled translational-torsional motion, cross-wind/torsional frequency ratio and eccentricity between centre of mass and centre of stiffness on the wind-induced response characteristics and wind excitation mechanisms was carried out. The wind tunnel test results highlight the significant effects of coupled translational-torsional motion, and eccentricity between centre of mass and centre of stiffness, on both the normalised along-wind and cross-wind acceleration responses for reduced wind velocities ranging from 4 to 20. Coupled translational-torsional motion and eccentricity between centre of mass and centre of stiffness also have significant impacts on the amplitude-dependent effect caused by the vortex resonant process, and the transfer of vibrational energy between the along-wind and cross-wind directions. These resulted in either an increase or decrease of each response component, in particular at reduced wind velocities close to a critical value of 10. In addition, the contribution of vibrational energy from the torsional motion to the cross-wind response of the building model can be greatly amplified by the effect of resonance between the vortex shedding frequency and the torsional natural frequency of the building model.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.75-82
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• 2007

In this study, a design-supporting system, which is intended to assist engineers in the schematic phase of the structural design, is developed using a case database that contains design information of tall buildings in Korea. A case-based reasoning method utilizing the case database is proposed. The inductive retrieval module for selecting structural system, in the initial stage, from the design information of case database for 47 tall buildings is presented. Also, the nearest-neighbor retrieval method for selecting similar design cases is introduced.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.17-34
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• 2018

Tall buildings are categorized as important structures because of the large number of occupants and high construction costs. The choice of competent lateral load resisting systems in tall buildings is of crucial importance. Bracing systems have long been an economic and effective method for resisting lateral loads in steel structures. However, there are some potential adverse aspects to bracing systems such as the limitations they inflict on architectural plans, uplift forces and poor performances in compression. in order to eliminate the mentioned problems and for cost optimization, in this paper, six 20-story steel buildings and frames with different types of bracing, i.e., conventional, mega-scale and buckling-restrained bracing (BRB) were analyzed. Linear and modal push-over analyses were carried out. The results pointed out that Mega-Scale Bracing (MSB) system has significant superiority over the conventional bracing type. The MSB system is 25% more economic. Some other advantages of MSB include: up to 63% less drift ratio, up to 38% better performance in lateral displacement, up to 100% stiffer stories, and about 50% smaller uplift forces. Moreover, MSB equipped with BRB attests even a better seismic behavior in the aforementioned parameters.