• Wind and Structures
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.527-542
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• 2002

Wind-excited vibrations of slender structures can induce fatigue damage and cause structural failure without exceeding ultimate limit state. Unfortunately, the growing importance of this problem is coupled with an evident lack of simple calculation criteria. This paper proposes a mathematical method for evaluating the crosswind fatigue of slender vertical structures, which represents the dual formulation of a parallel method that the authors recently developed with regard to alongwind vibrations. It takes into account the probability distribution of the mean wind velocity at the structural site. The aerodynamic crosswind actions on the stationary structure are caused by the vortex shedding and by the lateral turbulence, both schematised by spectral models. The structural response in the small displacement regime is expressed in closed form by considering only the contribution of the first vibration mode. The stress cycle counting is based on a probabilistic method for narrow-band processes and leads to analytical formulae of the stress cycles histogram, of the accumulated damage and of the fatigue life. The extension of this procedure to take into account aeroelastic vibrations due to lock-in is carried out by means of ESDU method. The examples point out the great importance of vortex shedding and especially of lock-in concerning fatigue.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.81-96
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• 2020

Wind measurements were made on the Canton Tower at a height of 461 m above ground during the Typhoon Vincente, the wind-induced accelerations and displacements of the tower were recorded as well. Comparisons of measured wind parameters at upper level of atmospheric boundary layer with those adopted in wind tunnel testing were presented. The measured turbulence intensity can be smaller than the design value, indicating that the wind tunnel testing may underestimate the crosswind structural responses for certain lock-in velocity range of vortex shedding. Analyses of peak factors and power spectral density for acceleration response shows that the crosswind responses are a combination of gust-induced buffeting and vortex-induced vibrations in the certain range of wind directions. The identified modal frequencies and mode shapes from acceleration data are found to be in good agreement with existing experimental results and the prediction from the finite element model. The damping ratios increase with amplitude of vibration or equivalently wind velocity which may be attributed to aerodynamic damping. In addition, the natural frequencies determined from the measured displacement are very close to those determined from the acceleration data for the first two modes. Finally, the relation between displacement responses and wind speed/direction was investigated.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.6 no.1
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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.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.213-228
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• 2013

Tall buildings have been traditionally designed to be symmetric rectangular, triangular or circular in plan, in order to avoid excessive seismic-induced torsional vibrations due to eccentricity, especially in seismic-prone regions like Japan. However, recent tall building design has been released from the spell of compulsory symmetric shape design, and free-style design is increasing. This is mainly due to architects' and structural designers' challenging demands for novel and unconventional expressions. Another important aspect is that rather complicated sectional shapes are basically good with regard to aerodynamic properties for crosswind excitations, which are a key issue in tall-building wind-resistant design. A series of wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulation have been carried out to determine aerodynamic forces and wind pressures acting on tall building models with various configurations: corner cut, setbacks, helical and so on. Dynamic wind-induced response analyses of these models have also been conducted. The results of these experiments have led to comprehensive understanding of the aerodynamic characteristics of tall buildings with various configurations.