• Wind and Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.353-370
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• 2014

A new method is proposed in this study for estimating the damping ratio of a super tall building under strong wind loads with short-time measured acceleration signals. This method incorporates two main steps. Firstly, the power spectral density of wind-induced acceleration response is obtained by the wavelet transform, then the dynamic characteristics including the natural frequency and damping ratio for the first vibration mode are estimated by a nonlinear regression analysis on the power spectral density. A numerical simulation illustrated that the damping ratios identified by the wavelet spectrum are superior in precision and stability to those values obtained from Welch's periodogram spectrum. To verify the efficiency of the proposed method, wind-induced acceleration responses of the Guangzhou West Tower (GZWT) measured in the field during Typhoon Usagi, which affected this building on September 22, 2013, were used. The damping ratios identified varied from 0.38% to 0.61% in direction 1 and from 0.22% to 0.59% in direction 2. This information is expected to be of considerable interest and practical use for engineers and researchers involved in the wind-resistant design of super-tall buildings.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.37-51
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• 2012

New generation of tall and complex buildings systems are now introduced that are reflective of the latest development in materials, design, sustainability, construction, and IT technologies. While the complexity in design is being overcome by the availability and advances in structural analysis tools and readily advanced software, the design of these buildings are still reliant on minimum code requirements that yet to be validated in full scale. The involvement of the author in the design and construction planning of Burj Khalifa since its inception until its completion prompted the author to conceptually develop an extensive survey and real-time structural health monitoring program to validate all the fundamental assumptions mad for the design and construction planning of the tower. The Burj Khalifa Project is the tallest structure ever built by man; the tower is 828 meters tall and comprises of 162 floors above grade and 3 basement levels. Early integration of aerodynamic shaping and wind engineering played a major role in the architectural massing and design of this multi-use tower, where mitigating and taming the dynamic wind effects was one of the most important design criteria established at the onset of the project design. Understanding the structural and foundation system behaviors of the tower are the key fundamental drivers for the development and execution of a state-of-the-art survey and structural health monitoring (SHM) programs. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to discuss the execution of the survey and real-time structural health monitoring programs to confirm the structural behavioral response of the tower during construction stage and during its service life; the monitoring programs included 1) monitoring the tower's foundation system, 2) monitoring the foundation settlement, 3) measuring the strains of the tower vertical elements, 4) measuring the wall and column vertical shortening due to elastic, shrinkage and creep effects, 5) measuring the lateral displacement of the tower under its own gravity loads (including asymmetrical effects) resulting from immediate elastic and long term creep effects, 6) measuring the building lateral movements and dynamic characteristic in real time during construction, 7) measuring the building displacements, accelerations, dynamic characteristics, and structural behavior in real time under building permanent conditions, 8) and monitoring the Pinnacle dynamic behavior and fatigue characteristics. This extensive SHM program has resulted in extensive insight into the structural response of the tower, allowed control the construction process, allowed for the evaluation of the structural response in effective and immediate manner and it allowed for immediate correlation between the measured and the predicted behavior. The survey and SHM programs developed for Burj Khalifa will with no doubt pioneer the use of new survey techniques and the execution of new SHM program concepts as part of the fundamental design of building structures. Moreover, this survey and SHM programs will be benchmarked as a model for the development of future generation of SHM programs for all critical and essential facilities, however, but with much improved devices and technologies, which are now being considered by the author for another tall and complex building development, that is presently under construction.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.163-178
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• 2005

Wind-induced mean and dynamic interference effects of tall buildings are studied in detail by a series of wind tunnel tests in this paper. Interference excitations of several types of upwind structures of different sizes in different upwind terrains are considered. Comprehensive interference characteristics are investigated by artificial neural networks and correlation analysis. Mechanism of the wakes vortex-induced resonance is discussed, too. Measured results show significant correlations exist in the distributions of the interference factors of different configurations and upwind terrains and, therefore, a series of relevant regression equations are proposed to simplify the complexity of the multi-parameter wind induced interference effects between two tall buildings.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.313-350
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• 2016

Taipei 101 Tower, which has 101 stories with height of 508 m, is located in Taipei where typhoons and earthquakes commonly occur. It is currently the second tallest building in the world. Therefore, the dynamic performance of the super-tall building under strong wind actions requires particular attentions. In this study, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) integrated with a new inflow turbulence generator and a new sub-grid scale (SGS) model was conducted to simulate the wind loads on the super-tall building. Three-dimensional finite element model of Taipei 101 Tower was established and used to evaluate the wind-induced responses of the high-rise structure based on the simulated wind forces. The numerical results were found to be consistent with those measured from a vibration monitoring system installed in the building. Furthermore, the equivalent static wind loads on the building, which were computed by the time-domain and frequency-domain analysis, respectively, were in satisfactory agreement with available wind tunnel testing results. It has been demonstrated through the validation studies that the numerical framework presented in this paper, including the recommended SGS model, the inflow turbulence generation technique and associated numerical treatments, is a useful tool for evaluation of the wind loads and wind-induced responses of tall buildings.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.925-942
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• 2016

With ongoing development of earthquake engineering research and the lessons learnt from a series of strong earthquakes, the seismic design concept of "resilience" has received much attention. Resilience describes the capability of a structure or a city to recover rapidly after earthquakes or other disasters. As one of the main features of urban constructions, tall buildings have greater impact on the sustainability and resilience of major cities. Therefore, it is important and timely to quantify their seismic resilience. In this work, a quantitative comparison of the seismic resilience of two tall buildings designed according to the Chinese and US seismic design codes was conducted. The prototype building, originally designed according to the US code as part of the Tall Building Initiative (TBI) Project, was redesigned in this work according to the Chinese codes under the same design conditions. Two refined nonlinear finite element (FE) models were established for both cases and their seismic responses were evaluated at different earthquake intensities, including the service level earthquake (SLE), the design-based earthquake (DBE) and the maximum considered earthquake (MCE). In addition, the collapse fragility functions of these two building models were established through incremental dynamic analysis (IDA). Based on the numerical results, the seismic resilience of both models was quantified and compared using the new-generation seismic performance assessment method proposed by FEMA P-58. The outcomes of this study indicate that the seismic resilience of the building according to the Chinese design is slightly better than that according to the US design. The conclusions drawn from this research are expected to guide further in-depth studies on improving the seismic resilience of tall buildings.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.53-59
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• 2012

With the rise in CPU power and the generalization and popularity of computers, engineering practice also changed from hand calculations to 3D computer models, from elastic linear analysis to 3D nonlinear static analysis and 3D nonlinear transient dynamic analysis. Thanks to holistic design approach and current trends in freeform and contemporary architecture, BIM concept is no longer a dream but also a reality. BIM is not just providing a media for better co-ordination but also to shorten the round-the-clock time in updating models to match with other professional disciplines. With the parametric modeling tools, structural information is also linked with BIM system and quickly produces analysis and design results from checking to fabrication. This paper presents a new framework which not just linked the BIM system by means of parametric mean but also create and produce connection FE model and fabrication drawings etc. This framework will facilitate structural engineers to produce well co-ordinate, optimized and safe structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.715-728
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• 2012

This paper deals with determining the fundamental frequency of tall buildings that consist of framed tube, shear core, belt truss and outrigger systems in which the framed tube and shear core vary in size along the height of the structure. The effect of belt truss and outrigger system is modeled as a concentrated rotational linear spring at the belt truss and outrigger system location. Many cantilevered tall structures can be treated as cantilevered beams with variable cross-section in free vibration analysis. In this paper, the continuous approach, in which a tall building is replaced by an idealized cantilever continuum representing the structural characteristics, is employed and by using energy method and Hamilton's variational principle, the governing equation for free vibration of tall building with variable distributed mass and stiffness is obtained. The general solution of governing equation is obtained by making appropriate selection for mass and stiffness distribution functions. By applying the separation of variables method for time and space, the governing partial differential equation of motion is reduced to an ordinary differential equation with variable coefficients with the assumption that the transverse displacement is harmonic. A power-series solution representing the mode shape function of tall building is used. Applying boundary conditions yields the boundary value problem; the frequency equation is established and solved through a numerical process to determine the natural frequencies. Computer program has been developed in Matlab (R2009b, Version 7.9.0.529, Mathworks Inc., California, USA). A numerical example has been solved to demonstrate the reliability of this method. The results of the proposed mathematical model give a good understanding of the structure's dynamic characteristics; it is easy to use, yet reasonably accurate and suitable for quick evaluations during the preliminary design stages.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.357-372
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• 2001

In this paper, cantilevered tall structures are treated as cantilever bars with varying cross-section for the analysis of their free longitudinal (or axial) vibrations. Using appropriate transformations, exact analytical solutions to determine the longitudinal natural frequencies and mode shapes for a one step non-uniform bar are derived by selecting suitable expressions, such as exponential functions, for the distributions of mass and axial stiffness. The frequency equation of a multi-step bar is established using the approach that combines the transfer matrix procedure or the recurrence formula and the closed-form solutions of one step bars, leading to a single frequency equation for any number of steps. The Ritz method is also applied to determine the natural frequencies and mode shapes in the vertical direction for cantilevered tall structures with variably distributed stiffness and mass. The formulae proposed in this paper are simple and convenient for engineering applications. Numerical example shows that the fundamental longitudinal natural frequency and mode shape of a 27-storey building determined by the proposed methods are in good agreement with the corresponding measured data. It is also shown that the selected expressions are suitable for describing the distributions of axial stiffness and mass of typical tall buildings.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.459-478
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• 2010

This paper contains detailed descriptions of a dynamic time-history modal analysis to calculate deflection, inter-storey drift and storey shear demand in single-storey and multi-storey buildings using an EXCEL spreadsheet. The developed spreadsheets can be used to obtain estimates of the dynamic response parameters with minimum input information, and is therefore ideal for supporting the conceptual design of tall building structures, or any other structures, in the early stages of the design process. No commercial packages, when customised, could compete with spreadsheets in terms of simplicity, portability, versatility and transparency. An innovative method for developing the stiffness matrix for the lateral load resistant elements in medium-rise and high-rise buildings is also introduced. The method involves minimal use of memory space and computational time, and yet allows for variations in the sectional properties of the lateral load resisting elements up the height of the building and the coupling of moment frames with structural walls by diaphragm action. Numerical examples are used throughout the paper to illustrate the development and use of the spreadsheet programs.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.481-490
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• 2006

The actual performance of a building during an earthquake depends on many factors. The prediction of the seismic performance of a new or existing structure is complex, due not only to the large number of factors that need to be considered and the complexity of the seismic response, but also due to the large inherent uncertainties and randomness associated with making these predictions. A central issue of this research is the proper treatment and incorporation of these uncertainties and randomness in the evaluation of structural capacity and response has been adopted in the seismic performance evaluation of steel tall buildings to account for the uncertainties and randomness in seismic demand and capacities in a consistent manner. The basic framework for reliability-based seismic performance evaluation and the key factors for statistical studies were summarized. A total of 36 target structures that represent typical tall steel buildings based on national building code (KBC-2005) were designed for the statistical studies of demand factor s and capacity factors. The incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) approach was examined through the simple steel moment frame building in determination of global drift capacity.