• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.81-85
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• 2012

Vertical meteorological conditions encountered by super tall buildings, such as wind speed, temperature and humidity, vary due to their height. Therefore, it is necessary to consider these environmental changes to properly estimate the heating and cooling loads, and to minimize the energy demands for HVAC in super tall buildings. This paper aims to analyze how vertical meteorological changes affect heating and cooling loads of super tall buildings by using numerical simulation. A radiosonde, which observes atmospheric parameters of upper air such as wind speed, wind direction, temperature, relative humidity and pressure, was used to provide weather data for the building load simulation. A hypothetical super tall building was used for the simulation to provide quantified characteristics of the heating and cooling loads, comparing the lower, middle and upper parts of the building. The effect of weather data on the heating and cooling loads in super tall building was also discussed.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.127-142
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• 2021

Wind load acting on a standalone structure is different from that acting on a similar structure which is surrounded by other structures in close proximity. The presence of other structures in the surrounding can change the wind flow regime around the principal structure and thus causing variation in wind loads compared to a standalone case. This variation on wind loads termed as interference effect depends on several factors like terrain category, geometry of the structure, orientation, wind incident angle, interfering distances etc., In the present study, a three building configuration is considered and the mean pressure coefficients on each face of principle building are determined in presence of two interfering buildings. Generally, wind loads on interfering buildings are determined from wind tunnel experiments. Computational fluid dynamic studies are being increasingly used to determine the wind loads recently. Whereas, wind tunnel tests are very expensive, the CFD simulation requires high computational cost and time. In this scenario, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) technique and Support Vector Regression (SVR) can be explored as alternative tools to study wind loads on structures. The present study uses these data-driven approaches to predict mean pressure coefficients on each face of principle building. Three typical arrangements of three building configuration viz. L shape, V shape and mirror of L shape arrangement are considered with varying interfering distances and wind incidence angles. Mean pressure coefficients (Cp mean) are predicted for 45 degrees wind incidence angle through ANN and SVR. Further, the critical faces of principal building, critical interfering distances and building arrangement which are more prone to wind loads are identified through this study. Among three types of building arrangements considered, a maximum of 3.9 times reduction in Cp mean values are noticed under Case B (V shape) building arrangement with 2.5B interfering distance. Effect of interfering distance and building arrangement on suction pressure on building faces has also been studied. Accordingly, Case C (mirror of L shape) building arrangement at a wind angle of 45º shows less suction pressure. Through this study, it was also observed that the increase of interfering distance may increase the suction pressure for all the cases of building configurations considered.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.58 no.6
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• pp.967-988
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• 2016

Due to the significant aerodynamic interference from sub-towers and surrounding tall buildings, the wind loads and dynamic responses on main tower of three-tower connected tall building typically change especially compared with those on the isolated single tall building. This paper addresses the wind load effects and equivalent static wind loads (ESWLs) of three-tower connected tall building based on measured synchronous surface pressures in a wind tunnel. The variations of the global shape coefficients and extremum wind loads of main tower structure with or without interference effect under different wind directions are studied, pointing out the deficiency of the traditional wind loads based on the load codes for the three-tower connected tall building. The ESWLs calculation method based on elastic restoring forces is proposed, which completely contains the quasi-static item, inertia item and the coupled effect between them. Then the wind-induced displacement and acceleration responses for main tower of three-tower connected tall building in the horizontal and torsional directions are investigated, subsequently the structural basal and floor ESWLs under different return periods, wind directions and damping ratios are studied. Finally, the action mechanism of interference effect on structural wind effects is investigated. Main conclusions can provide a sientific basis for the wind-resistant design of such three-tower connected tall building.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.439-449
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• 2018

Wind loading of a tall building built amidst a group of buildings in urban environment is always greatly affected by shielding effects. Wind tunnel tests were carried out to assess the shielding provided by a row of low-rise or medium-rise buildings upstream a square-section tall building of height-to-breadth ratio 6. Mean and dynamic wind loads on the tall building were measured at different wind incidence angles and presented as interference factors (IFs). It is found that presence of a row of upstream buildings provides significant shielding to the tall building. At normal wind incidence, the mean along-wind loads and all components of fluctuating wind loads on the tall building are always reduced by shielding. Vortex shedding seems to still occur on the upper exposed part of the tall building but the vortex excitation levels are largely reduced. The degree of shielding is found to depend on a number of arrangement parameters of the row of upstream buildings. Empirical equations are proposed to quantify the shielding effect based on the wind tunnel data.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.4 no.6
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• pp.455-468
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• 2001

This paper presents recent research on the experimental evaluation of wind loads on low buildings and the recommendations provided in the form of traditional codification. These mainly include the wind loads on buildings with geometries different from those examined in previous studies. This is followed by the evaluation of simulated wind loads on low building roofs. The overall application of a recently proposed simulation methodology for codification purposes is discussed in detail. The traditional codification provides for a group of roof geometries a single peak design pressure coefficient for each roof zone considering a nominal worst-case scenario; this may often lead to uneconomical loads. Alternatively, the presented methodology is capable of providing peak pressure coefficients corresponding to specific roof geometries and according to risk levels; this can generate risk consistent and more economical design wind loads for specific roof configurations taking into account, for instance, directional design conditions and upstream roughnesses.

• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1431-1439
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• 2018

For floating buildings may fl oat on the water for a long time, they are constantly affected by various environmental loads such as wind and wave loads. In this study to find the wave effect on the floating building, five models are designed using steel moment resisting frame. It is assumed that the lower part of the floating building is a reinforced concrete pontoon, while the upper part is a three-story steel frame. To analyze floating buildings affected by wind and wave loads, hydro-dynamic and substructure analysis are performed. As input loads, this study set limits that the mean wind velocity is 35 m/s and the significant wave height is 0.5 m for the residential building. From the hydrodynamic analysis, the time-history acceleration of building is obtained and transformed into a base ground input for a substructure analysis of the superstructure of the building. Finally the mean of the maximum from 30 dynamic analysis of the floating buildings are used to be compared with the results of the same model on the ground. It was shown that the dynamic results with wind and wave loads are not always lesser than the static results which are calculated with static equivalent wind load for a building that is located on the ground.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.205-212
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• 2008

This paper describes the application of an inverse building model to a calibrated forward building model using EnergyPlus program. Typically, inverse models are trained using measured data. However, in this study, an inverse building model was trained using data generated by an EnergyPlus model for an actual office building. The EnergyPlus model was calibrated using field data for the building. A training data set for a month of July was generated from the EnergyPlus model to train the inverse model. Cooling load prediction of the trained inverse model was tested using another data set from the EnergyPlus model for a month of August. Predicted cooling loads showed good agreement with cooling loads from the EnergyPlus model with root-mean square errors of 4.11%. In addition, different control strategies with dynamic cooling setpoint variation were simulated using the inverse model. Peak cooling loads and daily cooling loads were compared for the dynamic simulation.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.03a
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• pp.267-274
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• 2003

The objective of this study is to estimate the frequency characteristics of group walking loads based on the information of measured responses. At first, dynamic properties such as natural frequencies and modes are obtained from input/output relation for building structures by heel drop test. Second, a method to estimate group walking loads by the transfer functions from measured responses to group walking loads is proposed. The method turned out to estimate the group walking loads accurately. Higher modes could be important in estimating the amplitude of group walking loads with the information of single walking load.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.349-365
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• 2014

The dynamic response of structures under extremely short duration dynamic loads is of great concern nowadays. This paper investigates structures' response as well as the associated structural damage to explosive loads considering and ignoring the supporting soil flexibility effect. In the analysis, buildings are modeled by two alternate approaches namely, (1) building with fixed supports, (2) building with supports accounting for soil-flexibility. A lumped parameter model with spring-dashpot elements is incorporated at the base of the building model to simulate the horizontal and rotational movements of supporting soil. The soil flexibility for various shear wave velocities has been considered in the investigation. In addition, the influence of variation of lateral natural periods of building models on the obtained response and peak response time-histories besides damage indices has also been investigated under blast loads with different peak over static pressures. The Dynamic response is obtained by solving the governing equations of motion of the considered building model using a developed Matlab code based on the finite element toolbox CALFEM. The predicted results expressed in time-domain by the building model incorporating SSI effect are compared with the corresponding model results ignoring soil flexibility effect. The results show that the effect of surrounding soil medium leads to significant changes in the obtained dynamic response of the considered systems and hence cannot be simply ignored in damage assessment and response time-histories of structures where it increases response and amplifies damage of structures subjected to blast loads. Moreover, the numerical results provide an understanding of level of damage of structure through the computed damage indices.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2008

Interference effects in five square tall buildings arranged in an L- or T-shaped pattern are investigated in the wind tunnel. Mean and fluctuating shear forces, overturning moments and torsional moment are measured on each building with a force balance mounted at its base. Results are obtained at two values of clear separation between adjacent buildings, at half and a quarter building breadth. It is found that strong interference effect exists on all member buildings, resulting in significant modifications of wind loads as compared with the isolated single building case. Sheltering effect is observed on wind loads acting along the direction of an arm of the "L" or "T" on the inner buildings. However, increase in these wind loads from the isolated single building case is found on the most upwind edge building in the arm when wind blows at a slight oblique angle to the arm. The corner formed by two arms of buildings results in some wind catchment effect leading to increased wind pressure on windward building faces. Interesting interference phenomena such as negative drag force are reported. Interference effects on wind load fluctuations, load spectra and dynamic building responses are also studied and discussed.