• Wind and Structures
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2002

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have the capability to develop functional relationships between input-output patterns obtained from any source. Thus ANN can be conveniently used to develop a generalised relationship from limited and sometimes inconsistent data, and can therefore also be applied to tackle the data obtained from wind tunnel tests on building models with large number of variables. In this paper ANN model has been developed for predicting wind induced pressures in various zones of a Gable Building from limited test data. The procedure is also extended to a case wherein interference effects on a gable roof building by a similar building are studied. It is found that the Artificial Neural Network modelling is seen to predict successfully, the pressure coefficients for any roof slope that has not been covered by the experimental study. It is seen that ANN modelling can lead to a reduction of the wind tunnel testing effort for interference studies to almost half.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.299-316
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• 2020

Based on wind tunnel tests, this paper investigates the aerodynamic behavior of a large span canopy roof with elliptical plan and hyperbolic paraboloid shape. The statistics of pressure coefficients and the peak factor distributions are calculated for the top and bottom faces of the roof, and the Gaussian or non-Gaussian characteristics of the pressure time-histories in different areas of the roof are discussed. The cross-correlation of pressures at different positions on the roof, and between the top and bottom faces is also investigated. Combination factors are also evaluated to take into account the extreme values of net loads, relevant to the structural design of canopies.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.363-374
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• 2010

Appropriate scaling methods for wind tunnel modelling of building internal pressures induced through a dominant opening were investigated. In particular, model cavity volume distortion and geometric scaling of the opening details were studied. It was found that while model volume distortion may be used to scale down buildings for wind tunnel studies on internal pressure, the implementation of the added volume must be done with care so as not to create two cavity resonance systems. Incorrect scaling of opening details was also found to generate incorrect internal pressure characteristics. Furthermore, the effective air slug or jet was found to be longer when the opening was near a floor or sidewall as evidenced by somewhat lower Helmholtz frequencies. It is also shown that tangential flow excitation of Helmholtz resonance for off-centre openings in normal flow is also possible.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.63-84
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• 2015

The shape of a tall building has significant impact on wind force generation and wind-induced dynamic response. To study the effect of recessed cavities, wind excitations on a wind-tunnel model of an H-section tall building were compared with those on a square-section building model. Characteristics of the fluctuating wind pressures on the side faces of the two tall buildings and their role in the generation of crosswind forces on the buildings were investigated with the space-time statistical tool of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). This paper also compares the use of different pressure data sets for POD analysis in situations where pressures on two different surfaces are responsible for the generation of a wind force. The first POD mode is found to dominate the generation of crosswind excitation on the buildings.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.383-400
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• 2009

Low rise building roofs can be subjected to large fluctuating pressures during a tropical cyclone resulting in fatigue failure of cladding. Following the damage to housing in Tropical Cyclone Tracy in Darwin, Australia, the Darwin Area Building Manual (DABM) cyclic loading test criteria, that loaded the cladding for 10000 cycles oscillating from zero to a permissible stress design pressure, and the Experimental Building Station TR440 test of 10200 load cycles which increased in steps to the permissible stress design pressure, were developed for assessing building elements susceptible to low cycle fatigue failure. Recently the 'Low-High-Low' (L-H-L) cyclic test for metal roofing was introduced into the Building Code of Australia (2007). Following advances in wind tunnel data acquisition and full-scale wind loading simulators, this paper presents a comparison of wind-induced cladding damage, from a "design" cyclone proposed by Jancauskas, et al. (1994), with current test criteria developed by Mahendran (1995). Wind tunnel data were used to generate the external and net pressure time histories on the roof of a low-rise building during the passage of the "design" cyclone. The peak pressures generated at the windward roof corner for a tributary area representative of a cladding fastener are underestimated by the Australian/New Zealand Wind Actions Standard. The "design" cyclone, with increasing and decreasing wind speeds combined with changes in wind direction, generated increasing then decreasing pressures in a manner similar to that specified in the L-H-L test. However, the L-H-L test underestimated the magnitude and number of large load cycles, but overestimated the number of cycles in the mid ranges. Cladding elements subjected to the L-H-L test showed greater fatigue damage than when experiencing a five hour "design" cyclone containing higher peak pressures. It is evident that the increased fatigue damage was due to the L-H-L test having a large number of load cycles cycling from zero load (R=0) in contrast to that produced during the cyclone.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.427-440
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• 2008

Estimates of wind-induced wind effects on tall buildings are based largely on 1980s technology. Such estimates can vary significantly depending upon the wind engineering laboratory producing them. We describe an efficient database-assisted design (DAD) procedure allowing the realistic estimation of wind-induced internal forces with any mean recurrence interval in any individual member. The procedure makes use of (a) time series of directional aerodynamic pressures recorded simultaneously at typically hundreds of ports on the building surface, (b) directional wind climatological data, (c) micrometeorological modeling of ratios between wind speeds in open exposure and mean wind speeds at the top of the building, (d) a physically and probabilistically realistic aerodynamic/climatological interfacing model, and (e) modern computational resources for calculating internal forces and demand-to-capacity ratios for each member being designed. The procedure is applicable to tall buildings not susceptible to aeroelastic effects, and with sufficiently large dimensions to allow placement of the requisite pressure measurement tubes. The paper then addresses the issue of accounting explicitly for uncertainties in the factors that determine wind effects. Unlike for routine structures, for which simplifications inherent in standard provisions are acceptable, for tall buildings these uncertainties need to be considered with care, since over-simplified reliability estimates could defeat the purpose of ad-hoc wind tunnel tests.

• 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.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.25 no.B
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• pp.89-97
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• 2005

Application of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is introduced to study wind speed and building roof pressures of flow separation region. In this study, a detailed analysis of the approach wind flow, wind-induced building pressure and the relation between the two fields was carried out using the POD technique and CWT analysis. The results show potential of the application of POD and CWT in characterization of spatio-temporal and spectral properties of the approach wind and its induced dynamic pressure events. Some of findings resulting from the application of this analysis can be summarized as follows: (1) The POD first principal coordinate of the roof pressure in the separated shear layer is closely correlated with the longitudinal component of oncoming flow. (2) The CWT analysis suggests that the extreme peak pressure in the separated shear layer is due to condensed large-scale eddy motions.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.245-255
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• 2013

This paper presents the results of a set of wind tunnel tests carried out to examine wind-induced overall structural loads on rectangular medium-rise buildings. Emphasis was directed towards torsion and its correlation with peak shear forces in transverse and longitudinal directions. Two building models with the same horizontal dimensions but different gabled-roof angles ($0^{\circ}C$ and $45^{\circ}C$) were tested at different full-scale equivalent eave heights (20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 m) in open terrain exposure for all wind directions (every $15^{\circ}C$). Wind-induced pressures were integrated over building surfaces and results were obtained for along-wind force, across-wind force, and torsional moment. Maximum wind force component was given along with the other simultaneously-observed wind force components normalized by the overall peak. The study found that for flat-roofed buildings maximum torsion for winds in transverse direction is associated with 80% of the overall shear force perpendicular to the longer horizontal building dimension; and 45% of the maximum shear occurs perpendicular to the smaller horizontal building dimension. Comparison of the wind tunnel results with current torsion provisions in the American wind standard, the Canadian and European wind codes demonstrate significant discrepancies. Suggested load combination factors were introduced aiming at an adequate evaluation of wind load effects on rectangular medium-rise buildings.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.405-420
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• 2019

In this study, vibration characteristics of offshore wind turbine tower (WTT) with gravity-based foundation (GBF) are identified from dynamic responses under wave-induced excitations. The following approaches are implemented to achieve the objective. Firstly, the operational modal analysis methods such as frequency domain decomposition (FDD) and stochastic subspace identification (SSI) are selected to estimate modal parameters from output-only dynamic responses. Secondly, a GBF WTT model composed of superstructure, substructure and foundation is simulated as a case study by using a structural analysis program, MIDAS FEA. Thirdly, wave pressures acting on the WTT structure are established by nonlinear regular waves which are simulated from a computational fluid software, Flow 3D. Wave-induced acceleration responses of the target structure are analyzed by applying the simulated wave pressures to the GBF WTT model. Finally, modal parameters such as natural frequencies and mode shapes are estimated from the output-only acceleration responses and compared with the results from free vibration analysis. The effect of wave height and period on modal parameter extraction is also investigated for the mode identification of the GBF WTT.