The effect of amplitude-dependent damping on wind-induced vibrations of a super tall building

Full-scale measurements of wind effects on a 70 storey tall building have been conducted. The tall building that has a height of 367 m is the second tallest structure in Hong Kong. The amplitude-dependent characteristics of damping have been obtained by using the random decrement technique from the field measurements of acceleration responses. The objective of this study is to present detailed investigations into the effects of amplitude-dependent damping on the wind-induced responses of the super tall building based on the measured non-linear damping and wind action characteristics. An efficient and less time consuming digital simulation technique is developed to generate time series of turbulent wind loads acting on the tall building based on the measured wind speed records. The predicted dynamic responses of the building using the actual amplitude-dependent damping characteristics are compared with those computed by using constant damping parameters assumed by the structural designers or estimated from the field measurements in order to evaluate the adequacy of current design practices and to apply that knowledge to structural design of tall buildings. It is observed from this study that the effect of amplitude-dependent damping on the dynamic responses of such a super tall building is significant and knowledge of actual damping characteristics is very important in the accurate prediction of wind-induced vibrations of a tall building.     

Identification of Wind Loads and Estimation of Structural Responses of Super‐Tall Buildings by an Inverse Method

This article presents a Kalman‐filter‐based estimation algorithm for identification of wind loads on a super‐tall building using limited structural responses. In practice, acceleration responses are most convenient to be measured among wind‐induced dynamic responses of structures. The proposed inverse method allows estimating the unknown wind loads and structural responses of a super‐tall building using limited acceleration measurements. Taipei 101 Tower is a super‐tall building with 101 stories and a height of 508 m. Field measurements and numerical simulations of the wind effects on Taipei 101 Tower are conducted. The wind loads acting on the super‐tall building are estimated based on the wind‐induced responses determined from the numerical simulations and the refined finite‐element model of the structure, which are in good agreement with the exact results. The stability performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated. The influence of noise levels in the measurements and covariance matrix of noise on the identification accuracy are investigated and discussed based on the L‐curve method. Finally, the wind loads and structural responses are reconstructed based on the field‐measured accelerations during Typhoon Matsa. The accuracy of the identified results is verified by comparing the reconstructed acceleration responses with the field measurements. The results of this study show that the proposed inverse approach can provide accurate predictions of the wind loads and wind‐induced responses of super‐tall buildings based on limited measured responses.     

Field measurements of wind effects on the tallest building in Hong Kong

Central Plaza has a height of approximately 374 m and is 78‐storeys tall. It is the tallest structure in Hong Kong and was the highest reinforced‐concrete building in the world when it was built several years ago. This paper describes some results obtained from the full‐scale measurements of wind effects on Central Plaza. The field data such as wind speed, wind direction and acceleration responses have been measured during the close passage of several typhoons in recent years. Detailed analysis of the field data is conducted to investigate wind effects on the tall building. The full‐scale measurements are compared with the wind tunnel results. The amplitude‐dependent characteristics of damping that were obtained by using the random decrement technique are investigated on the basis of the field measurements. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integrated wind‐induced response analysis and design optimization of tall steel buildings using Micro‐GA

This paper presents an integrated procedure for wind‐induced response analysis and design optimization for rectangular steel tall buildings based on the random vibration theory and automatic least cost design optimization technique using Micro‐Genetic Algorithm (GA). The developed approach can predict wind‐induced drift and acceleration responses for serviceability design of a tall building; the technique can also provide an optimal resizing design of the building under wind loads to achieve cost‐efficient design. The empirical formulas of wind force spectra obtained from simultaneous measurements of surface pressures on various rectangular tall building models in wind tunnel tests are verified testified using a published example. Upon the known wind force spectra, the equivalent static wind loads for every storey, such as along‐wind, across‐wind and torsional loads, are then determined and applied for structural analysis including estimation of wind‐induced responses. An improved form of GAs, a Micro‐GA, is adopted to minimize the structural cost/weight of steel buildings subject to top acceleration and lateral drifts constraints with respect to the discrete design variables of steel section sizes. The application and effectiveness of the developed integrated wind‐induced response analysis and design optimization procedure is illustrated through a 30‐storey rectangular steel building example. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wind effects on Shenzhen Zhuoyue Century Center: Field measurement and wind tunnel test

Field measurements of wind effects on Zhuoyue Century Center were conducted during 4 typhoon events in the recent 5 years, during which the field data such as wind speeds, wind directions, and acceleration responses were simultaneously and continuously measured. On the basis of field measured data, dynamic characteristics of this super‐tall building were determined by recently developed fast Bayesian fast Fourier transform method. Using full‐scale measurement data under 4 typhoons and breezy conditions for modal identification, one could observe a relatively wide scatter in the identified modal damping ratios, and the damping ratios do not appear to have an obvious nonlinear relationship with vibration amplitude. The average damping ratios of the first 2 modes were 0.70% and 0.73%, respectively. Serviceability of the super‐tall building under wind action was analyzed on the basis of the field measured response. Finally, the measured wind‐induced acceleration responses were further compared with those obtained from the wind tunnel test to evaluate the accuracy of the model test results.     

Evaluation of wind loads on super‐tall buildings from field‐measured wind‐induced acceleration response

With the nonstationary wind‐induced acceleration data from full‐scale measurements, an approach for estimation of the wind‐induced overturning bending moments for super‐tall buildings was proposed in this paper. The empirical mode decomposition was employed to decompose the measured acceleration data into a set of intrinsic mode functions and a residual component. To remove the baseline offset, the residual component and the intrinsic mode function components with long‐period were eliminated before their integrations into velocity and displacement components. Then, the intrinsic mode function components, which have the same dominant periods as the natural periods of the studied tall buildings, were extracted from the original signals, and the natural frequency and damping ratio for the first vibration mode of the building were identified. Finally, the wind‐induced overturning bending moments of the building were obtained from the generalized wind loads for the first vibration mode, which could be obtained from the time history analysis of dynamic equation. The Hilbert spectrum of wind‐induced overturning bending moments was utilized to observe its characteristics in both time and frequency domains, and the Strouhal number was thus identified. The proposed scheme and some selected results may be helpful for further understanding of wind effects on super‐tall buildings. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Field measurements of wind and structural responses of a 70‐storey tall building under typhoon conditions

This paper describes the results obtained from the full‐scale measurements of wind effects on a 70‐storey tall building in Hong Kong. The objective of the experiment is to measure wind action on and wind‐induced response of the tall building. Simultaneous and continuous data of wind speeds, wind directions and acceleration responses have been recorded at the top of the tall building since 1995. The field data presented in this paper were measured during the passage of four typhoons—Typhoon Kent (1995), Typhoon Ryan (1995), Typhoon Sibyl (1995) and Typhoon Sally (1996). The characteristics of the typhoon wind and the structural responses of the building are investigated. The serviceability of this tall building under typhoon conditions is discussed on the basis of the field measurements. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of soil‐structure interaction on performance of a super tall building using a new eddy‐current tuned mass damper

Tuned mass dampers (TMDs) can be used as vibration control devices to improve the vibration performance of high‐rise buildings. The Shanghai Tower (SHT) is a 632‐m high landmark building in China, featuring a new eddy‐current TMD. Special protective mechanisms have been adopted to prevent excessively large amplitude of the TMD under extreme wind or earthquake loading scenarios. This paper presents a methodology for simulating behavior of the new eddy‐current TMD that features displacement‐dependent damping behavior. The TMD model was built into the SHT finite element model to perform frequency analysis and detailed response analyses under wind and earthquake loads. Furthermore, soil‐structure interaction (SSI) effects on wind and seismic load responses of the SHT model were investigated, as SSI has a significant impact on the vibration performance of high‐rise buildings. It was found that SSI has more significant effects on acceleration response for wind loads with a short return period than for wind loads with a long return period. Some of the acceleration responses with SSI effects exceed design limits of human comfort for wind loads with shorter return periods. As to the seismic analyses, it was found that SSI slightly reduces the displacement amplitude, the damping force, and the impact force of the TMD.     

Wind tunnel test and field measurement study of wind effects on a 600‐m‐high super‐tall building

Ping An Finance Center with a height of 600 m and 118 storeys, located in Shenzhen, is currently the second tallest building in China. This paper presents a comprehensive study of wind effects on the supertall building through wind tunnel testing and field measurement. The wind‐induced loads and pressures on the skyscraper were measured by high‐frequency force balance technique and synchronous multipressure sensing system, respectively. In the wind tunnel study, a whole range of characteristic properties, including mean and r.m.s force coefficients, power spectral densities, coherences, correlations, and phase‐plane trajectories, wind‐induced displacement, and acceleration responses were presented and discussed. In addition, a field measurement study of the dynamic responses of Ping An Finance Center was conducted during a tropical cyclone, which aimed to verify the design assumptions and further the understanding of the dynamic properties and performance of the 600‐m‐high supertall building, including natural frequencies, damping ratios, and wind‐induced structural responses. Then, the serviceability of the skyscraper is assessed on the basis of the experimental results and field measurements. The outcomes of this combined model test and field measurement study are expected to be useful for the wind‐resistant design of future supertall buildings.     

Convolutional neural network‐based wind‐induced response estimation model for tall buildings

This study presents a convolutional neural network (CNN)‐based response estimation model for structural health monitoring (SHM) of tall buildings subject to wind loads. In this model, the wind‐induced responses are estimated by CNN trained with previously measured sensor signals; this enables the SHM system to operate stably even when a sensor fault or data loss occurs. In the presented model, top‐level wind‐induced displacement in the time and frequency domains, and wind data in the frequency domain are configured into the input map of the CNN to reflect the resisting capacity of a tall building, the change in the dynamic characteristics of the building due to wind loads, and the relationship between wind load and the building. To evaluate stress, which is used as a safety indicator for structural members in the building, the maximum and minimum strains of columns are set as the output layer of the CNN. The CNN is trained using measured wind and wind response data to predict the column strains during a future wind load. The presented model is validated using data from a wind tunnel test of a building model. The performance of the presented model is verified through strain estimation with data that were not used in the CNN training. To assess the validity of the presented input map configuration, the estimation performance is compared with a CNN that considered only the time domain responses as input. Furthermore, the effects of the variations in the configuration of the CNN on the wind response estimation performance are examined.     

The wind‐induced response characteristics of atypical tall buildings

A tall building reacts sensitively to winds because the wind force increases according to the height and shape of the building. Various shapes of tall buildings and their aerodynamic characteristics have been studied extensively. For structural design and occupant comfort, the dynamic displacement of a tall building must be maintained within the criteria for acceptable levels of wind‐induced motion. An aerodynamically appropriate building shape needs to be selected at the design stage of a tall building. In this study, wind‐induced vibration responses were investigated, according to the criteria for maximum acceptable displacement and acceleration. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Monitoring of structural modal parameters and dynamic responses of a 600m‐high skyscraper during a typhoon

This paper presents field measurement results of structural dynamic properties and wind‐induced responses of 600m‐high Ping‐An Finance Center in Shenzhen during the passage of Typhoon Haima. The field measurements included wind speed, wind direction, and structural acceleration responses during the typhoon. Analysis of the field measurements is carried out to investigate the wind‐induced structural vibrations and dynamic properties of the skyscraper under typhoon condition. In the analysis, natural frequencies and damping ratios of Ping‐An Finance Center are estimated using Peak‐Picking method, half‐power bandwidth method in frequency domain, and random decrement technique in time domain, respectively. Two band‐pass filtering methods, namely, elliptical filtering method and Kaiser‐window FIR filter, are adopted to deal with the measured acceleration signals. Consequently, the modal parameters identified with the Peak‐Picking, half‐power bandwidth, and random decrement technique methods are presented and discussed in detail. In addition, the probabilistic characteristics of the recorded acceleration responses are analyzed using the generalized extreme value distribution, and then the serviceability of the skyscraper during the typhoon is evaluated.     

A study on vortex‐induced vibration of supertall buildings in acrosswind

Modern tall buildings using innovative structural systems and high‐strength materials tend to be slender and lightly damped. Hence, they are vulnerable to the dynamic action of wind. Crosswind excitation on tall buildings can result in aeroelastic problems. Vortex‐induced vibration (VIV) is the prime problem in self‐excited vibration of the flexible structures, and it should be especially observed in order to avoid the ultimate limit state in the design stage. In order to predict the vortex‐induced response of a supertall building in China with the single‐degree‐of‐freedom (SDOF) mathematical model, wind tunnel tests were carried out with an improved aeroelastic model according to the similitude. The measured top acceleration of the structure showed that VIV was quite significant at some wind speeds and should be considered in the design. Based on the experimental data, the aerodynamic parameters were determined and the characteristics of VIV were investigated in some details. The time history of acceleration at the lock‐in wind speed was then obtained using the Runge–Kutta method with the SDOF model. The numerical results are in accordance with the measurements. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cross-wind response of tall buildings

A design procedure was developed using random vibration theory and uses mode-generalized cross-wind force spectra and aerodynamic data to calculate the cross-wind displacement and acceleration responses of tall buildings. The force spectra of a number of building shapes and sizes in both suburban and city centre type wind flow are presented. The proposed design procedure gives reasonable estimates of the cross-wind response, compared with wind tunnel measurements, at reduced wind velocities and at structural damping values consistent with modern habitable tall building design. This allows assessment of the structural requirements of tall buildings to be made at an early design stage, and also allows the designers to assess the need for more detailed and expansive wind tunnel model tests.     

Evaluation of coupling–control effect of a sky‐bridge for adjacent tall buildings

In this study, the coupling–control effect of a sky‐bridge for adjacent tall buildings has been investigated. To this end, two building structures of 42‐ and 49‐stories connected by a sky‐bridge and constructed in the Seoul, Korea, were used. Earthquake excitations and wind load data obtained from wind tunnel tests are employed for numerical simulation. Lead rubber bearings and linear motion bearings were used for the connectors between the sky‐bridge and the example buildings. Several types of connector configurations were investigated to find an appropriate configuration for the tall buildings considered. The displacement and acceleration responses of the coupled buildings, and the reactions of the bearings and member forces of the sky‐bridge were evaluated in comparison with the uncoupled buildings. Numerical results demonstrated that the sky‐bridge could effectively increase the damping ratio of the coupled tall buildings, resulting in decreased dynamic responses. In addition, it was shown that the coupling–control effect of the sky‐bridge could be significantly improved by using additional viscous dampers. The connection system and configuration proposed in this study had been applied to the construction of the sky‐bridge for the example structures. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic performance evaluation of Shanghai Tower under winds based on full‐scale data

Shanghai Tower is the tallest building in China with a height of 632 m. This study aims to investigate the wind characteristics and its impact on Shanghai Tower so as to provide useful information for the wind‐resistant design of 600 m+ super‐tall buildings. By analyzing the data of wind speed during the occurrence of DeHong in June 2017, the relationship between turbulence intensity and mean wind speed is verified, and the correlation between gust factor and turbulence intensity is confirmed. Apart from that, it is also found that the von Karman spectrum fits well with the measured fluctuating wind speed spectrum. In addition, the 83rd and 117th acceleration data are analyzed to obtain the natural frequency by peak‐picking, frequency domain decomposition, stochastic subspace identification, and fast Bayesian fast Fourier transform methods. The amplitude‐dependence dynamic parameters of Shanghai Tower on the basis of the field measurements are studied as well. Finally, the wind‐induced vibration is investigated based on the acceleration data and wind speed data, which verifies that the responses along two main axes having a similar amplitude under wind effects. The occurrence of DeHong demonstrates that a gale equivalent to a typhoon may occur in urban areas without any urban warning.     

Mode shape linearization and correction in coupled dynamic analysis of wind‐excited tall buildings

The three‐dimensional mode shapes found in modern tall buildings complicate the use of the high‐frequency base balance (HFBB) technique in wind tunnel testing for predicting their wind‐induced loads and effects. The linearized‐mode‐shape (LMS) method was recently proposed to address some of the complications in the calculation of the generalized wind forces, which serve as the input to modal analysis for predicting wind‐induced dynamic responses of tall buildings. An improved LMS method, called the advanced linearized‐mode‐shape (ALMS) method, is developed in this paper by introducing torsional mode shape corrections to account for the partial correlation of torques over building height. The ALMS method has been incorporated into the accurate complete quadratic combination method in the coupled dynamic analysis to form a comprehensive procedure for the determination of equivalent static wind loads (ESWLs) for structural design of complex tall buildings. The improved accuracy in the prediction of generalized forces by the ALMS method has been validated by a 60‐storey benchmark building with multiple‐point simultaneous pressure measurements. A practical 40‐storey residential building with significant swaying and torsional effects is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed wind load and response analysis procedure based on the HFBB data. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

强台风作用下深圳卓越世纪中心的实测研究

超高层建筑的结构动力特性是影响结构风效应评估精度的重要因素,实测是获取实际结构动力特性参数的唯一方法并已有很多研究,但实测研究中出现较大振幅的情况仍极为少见。文章采用自主研发的无线加速度传感器,对高度280m的深圳卓越世纪中心北塔(ZCC)进行连续长期监测,得到10年来多次台风作用下ZCC结构顶部加速度响应时程信号。采用不同参数识别方法分别对ZCC在5次具有代表性的台风作用下的结构顶部加速度响应时程数据进行详细分析,并将台风“山竹”的实测结果和风洞试验的结果进行对比。结果显示：不同方法识别得到的结构模态频率一致性较好,模态阻尼比则存在一定差别;结构模态频率有随振幅增大而减少的趋势,顺风向的结构模态阻尼比随加速度的增大有增大的趋势,横风向的结构阻尼比则呈现较大的离散性,和加速度振幅的相关性不明显;现场实测得到的ZCC在台风“山竹”作用下的结构顶部峰值加速度和风洞试验结果具有较好的一致性,且在连续10年中测到的最大峰值加速度为23.91cm/s²,表明该建筑能够满足舒适度要求。     

Experimental study of across‐wind aerodynamic damping of super high‐rise buildings with aerodynamically modified square cross‐sections

Across‐wind aerodynamic damping ratios are determined from the wind‐induced acceleration responses of 10 aeroelastic models of square super high‐rise buildings in an urban flow condition (exposure category C in the Chinese code) using the random decrement technique. Moreover, the influences of amplitude‐dependent structural damping ratio on the estimation of aerodynamic damping ratio are discussed. The validity of estimated damping is examined through a comparison with previous research achievements. On the basis of the estimated results, the characteristics of the across‐wind aerodynamic damping ratios of modified square high‐rise buildings are studied. The effects of aerodynamically modified cross‐sections, such as chamfered, slotted and tapered cross‐section, on the across‐wind aerodynamic damping ratio are investigated. The results indicate that modifications of cross‐sections are not always effective in suppressing the aeroelastic effects of super high‐rise buildings. Low corner‐cut ratios (chamfer ratios from 5% to 20% and slot ratios from 5% to 10%) and low taper ratio (1%) significantly decrease the magnitudes of absolute aerodynamic damping ratios. However, large modifications of cross‐sections (slot ratio of 20% and taper ratios from 3% to 5%) increase wind‐induced responses by changing the aerodynamic damping ratios. According to the database, empirical aerodynamic damping function parameters are fitted for high‐rise buildings with aerodynamically modified square cross‐sections. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modal identification of Di Wang Building under Typhoon York using the Hilbert–Huang transform method

The Di Wang Building is one of the tallest composite buildings in the world, located in downtown Shenzhen City of China about 2 km from the Hong Kong border. On 16 September 1999, Typhoon York – that is the strongest typhoon since 1983 and the typhoon of longest duration on record – attacked Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The wind and structural monitoring system installed in the Di Wang Building timely recorded wind and structural response data. The newly emerged Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) method in conjunction with the random decrement technique (RDT) is applied to the measured data in this paper to identify dynamic characteristics of the building. A series of natural frequencies and modal damping ratios of the building under different wind speeds in different directions are identified and compared with those from the fast Fourier transform (FFT)‐based method. The variations of natural frequency, total modal damping ratio and net structural modal damping ratio with wind speed and vibration amplitude are also investigated. The results show that the natural frequencies identified by the HHT method are almost the same as those obtained by the FFT‐based method. The first two modal damping ratios given by the HHT method are, however, lower than those by the FFT‐based method, which may indicate that the FFT‐based method overestimates the modal damping ratios. Both the total and the net structural modal damping ratios increase with increasing wind speed and vibration amplitude but the situation is reversed for the natural frequency. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.