• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제36권5호
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• pp.599-624
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• 2010

Offshore wind turbines are relatively complex structural and mechanical systems located in a highly demanding environment. In the present paper the fundamental aspects and the major issues related to the design of these special structures are outlined. Particularly, a systemic approach is proposed for a global design of such structures, in order to handle coherently their different parts: the decomposition of these structural systems, the required performance and the acting loads are all considered under this philosophy. According to this strategy, a proper numerical modeling requires the adoption of a suitable technique in order to organize the qualitative and quantitative assessments in various sub-problems, which can be solved by means of sub-models at different levels of detail, for both structural behavior and loads simulation. Specifically, numerical models are developed to assess the safety performances under aerodynamic and hydrodynamic actions. In order to face the problems of the actual design of a wind farm in the Mediterranean Sea, in this paper, three schemes of turbines support structures have been considered and compared: the mono pile, the tripod and the jacket support structure typologies.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.287-306
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• 2002

The assessment of structural performance of transfer structures under potential seismic actions is presented. Various seismic assessment methodologies are used, with particular emphasis on the accurate modelling of the higher mode effects and the potential development of a soft storey effect in the mega-columns below the transfer plate (TP) level. Those methods include response spectrum analysis (RSA), manual calculation, pushover analysis (POA) and equivalent static load analysis (ESA). The capabilities and limitations of each method are highlighted. The paper aims, firstly, to determine the appropriate seismic assessment methodology for transfer structures using these different approaches, all of which can be undertaken with the resources generally available in a design office. Secondly, the paper highlights and discusses factors influencing the response behaviour of transfer structures, and finally provides a general indication of their seismic vulnerability. The representative Hong Kong building considered in this paper utilises a structural system with coupled shear walls and moment resisting portal-frames, above and below the TP, respectively. By adopting the wind load profile stipulated in the Code of Practice on Wind Effects: Hong Kong-1983, all the structural members are sized and detailed according to the British Standards BS8110 and the current local practices. The seismic displacement demand for the structure, when built on either rock or deep soil sites, was determined in a companion paper. The lateral load-displacement characteristic of the building, determined herein from manual calculation, has indicated that the poor ductility (brittle nature) of the mega-columns, due mainly to the high level of axial pre-compression as found from the analysis, cannot be effectively alleviated solely by increasing the quantity of confinement stirrups. The interstorey drift demands at lower and upper zones caused by seismic actions are found to be substantially higher than those arising from wind loads. The mega-columns supporting the TP and the coupling beams at higher zones are identified to be the most vulnerable components under seismic actions.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제30권4호
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• pp.423-432
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• 2020

A steel high-rise building (HRB) with 15 stories was analyzed under the dynamic load of wind or four different earthquakes taking into consideration the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) and using tuned mass damper (TMD) devices to resist these types of dynamic loads. The behavior of the steel HRB as a lightweight structure subjected to dynamic loads is critical especially for wind load with effect maximum at the top of the building and reduced until the base of the building, while on the contrary for seismic load with effect maximum at the base and reduced until the top of the building. The TMDs as a successful passive resistance method against the effect of wind or earthquakes is used to mitigate their effects on the steel high-rise building. Lateral displacements, top accelerations and straining actions were computed to judge the effectiveness of the TMDs on the response of the steel HRB subjected to wind or earthquakes.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제1권4호
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• pp.287-302
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• 1998

This paper formulates a probabilistic model which is able to represent the maximum instantaneous wind velocity. Unlike the classical methods, where the randomness is circumscribed within the mean maximum component, this model relies also on the randomness of the maximum value of the turbulent fluctuation. The application of the FOSM method furnishes the first and second statistical moments in closed form. The comparison between the results herein obtained and those supplied by classical methods points out the central role of the turbulence intensity. Its importance is exalted when extending the analysis from the wind velocity to the wind pressure.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제18권1호
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• pp.37-56
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• 2014

The evaluation of pressure fields acting on slender structures under wind loads is currently performed in experimental aerodynamic tests. For wind-sensitive structures, in fact, the knowledge of global and local wind actions is crucial for design purpose. This paper considers a particular slender structure under wind excitation, representative of most common high-rise buildings, whose experimental wind field on in-scale model was measured in the CRIACIV boundary-layer wind tunnel (University of Florence) for several angles of attack of the wind. It is shown that an efficient reduced model to represent structural response can be obtained by coupling the classical structural modal projection with the so called blowing modes projection, obtained by decomposing the covariance or power spectral density (PSD) wind tensors. In particular, the elaboration of experimental data shows that the first few blowing modes can effectively represent the wind-field when eigenvectors of the PSD tensor are used, while a significantly larger number of blowing modes is required when the covariance wind tensor is used to decompose the wind field.

• 한국항해항만학회지
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• 제28권9호
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• pp.815-820
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• 2004

In this paper, after analyzing other models with their advantages and disadvantages, we proposed a simple parametric model for calculating wind speed & direction and wave height & direction at any location around the typhoon at sea. The proposed wind-field model of typhoon is asymmetric, and consists of a circular symmetric wind-field caused by the pressure gradient of stationary typhoon and a moving wind-field caused by the movement of typhoon. By verifying this model through observed data, we found that it is accurate enough to develop the simulation software for training students and seafarers so as to take appropriate actions while being faced with the typhoon at sea.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제48권4호
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• pp.435-453
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• 2013

A new computational approach for the rain load on the transmission tower is presented to obtain the responses of system subjected to the wind and rain combined excitations. First of all, according to the similarity theory, the aeroelastic modeling of high-voltage transmission tower is introduced and two kinds of typical aeroelastic models of transmission towers are manufactured for the wind tunnel tests, which are the antelope horn tower and pole tower. And then, a formula for the pressure time history of rain loads on the tower structure is put forward. The dynamic response analyses and experiments for the two kinds of models are carried out under the wind-induced and wind-rain-induced actions with the uniform and turbulent flow. It has been shown that the results of wind-rain-induced responses are bigger than those of only wind-induced responses and the rain load influence on the transmission tower can't be neglected during the strong rainstorm. The results calculated by the proposed method have a good agreement with those by the wind tunnel test. In addition, the wind-rain-induced responses along and across the wind direction are in the same order of response magnitude of towers.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제22권1호
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• pp.89-106
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• 2016

With an aim to assess the wind damage to urban trees in more realistic conditions, the nonlinear dynamics of structured trees subjected to strong winds with different levels is investigated in the present paper. For the logical treatment of dynamical behavior of trees, material nonlinearities of green wood associated with tree biomechanics and geometric nonlinearity of tree configuration are included. Applying simulated fluctuating wind velocity to the numerical model, the dynamical behavior of the structured tree is explored. A comparative study against the linear dynamics analysis usually involved in the previous researches is carried out. The failure wind velocity of urban trees is then defined, whereby the failure percentages of the tree components are exposed. Numerical investigations reveal that the nonlinear dynamics analysis of urban trees results in a more accurate solution of wind-induced response than the classical linear dynamics analysis, where the nonlinear effect of the tree behavior gives rise to be strengthened as increasing of the levels of wind velocity, i.e., the amplitude of 10-min mean wind velocity. The study of relationship between the failure percentage and the failure wind velocity provides a new perspective towards the vulnerability assessment of urban trees likely to fail due to wind actions, which is potential to link with the practical engineering.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제22권3호
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• pp.307-328
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• 2016

This paper describes an investigation of the net wind loads on solar panels and wind loads on the underlying roof surface for panels mounted parallel to pitched roofs of domestic buildings. Typical solar panel array configurations were studied in a wind tunnel and the aerodynamic shape factors on the panels were put in a form appropriate for the Australian/New Zealand Wind Actions Standard AS/NZS 1170.2:2011. The results can also be used to obtain more refined design data on individual panels within an array. They also suggest values for the aerodynamic shape factors on the roof surface under the panels, based on a gust wind speed at roof height, of ${\pm}0.5$ for wind blowing parallel to the ridge, and ${\pm}0.6$ for wind blowing perpendicular to the ridge. The net loads on solar arrays in the middle portion of the roof are larger than those on the same portion of the roof without any solar panels, thus resulting in increased loads on the underlying roof structure.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제6권1호
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• pp.1-22
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• 2003

Nowadays balanced cantilever construction plays an essential role as a sophisticated erection technique of bridges due to its economical and ecological advantages. Experience teaches that wind has a great importance with regard to this construction technique, but methods proposed by codes to take wind effects into account are still rather crude and, in most cases, completely lacking. Also research in this field is quite limited and aimed at studying only the longitudinal shear and the torque at the pier base, caused by the mean wind velocity and by the longitudinal turbulence actions over the deck. This paper advances the present solutions by developing a new procedure that takes into account all wind effects both on the deck and on the pier. The proposed model assumes the mean wind velocity as orthogonal to the bridge plane and considers the effects produced by all the three turbulence components and by the vortex shedding. The applications point out the role of each loading component on different bridge configurations and show that disregarding the presence of some effects may imply oversimplified results and relevant underestimations.