Loading of a very tall building in a simulated downburst wind field

Thunderstorm downbursts are important for wind engineers as they have been shown to produce the design wind speeds for mid to high return periods in many regions of Australia [1]. In structural design codes (e.g. AS/NZS1170.02-02) an atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is assumed, and a vertical profile is interpolated from recorded 10 m wind speeds. The ABL assumption is however inaccurate when considering the complex structure of a thunderstorm outflow, and its effects on engineered structures. Several researchers have shown that the downburst, close to its point of divergence is better represented by an impinging wall jet profile than the traditional ABL. Physical modelling is the generally accepted approach to estimate wind loads on structures and it is therefore important to physically model the thunderstorm downburst so that its effects on engineered structures may be studied. An advancement on the simple impinging jet theory, addressed here is the addition of a pulsing mechanism to the jet which allows not only the divergent characteristics of a downburst to be produced, but also it allows the associated leading ring vortex to be developed. The ring vortex modelling is considered very important for structural design as it is within the horizontal vortex that the largest velocities occur [2]. This paper discusses the flow field produced by a pulsed wall jet, and also discusses the induced pressures that this type of flow has on a scaled tall building.

Strategic design guidance on tall buildings in the Arab region

Globally, there has been enhanced media -and public interest in tall buildings following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York. In the Arab region, tall buildings have also become an important topic of debate. The Middle East is set to grow significantly over the next two decades. Soaring population and jobs growth will increase demands for the better use of residential and commercial office space. This is a vital issue for the growth in the economy of the region. The number of construction sites for tall buildings in the Arab world is staggering when compared to European developments. A statistical review of tall buildings has shown for example that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by the year 2010 will outnumber UK and Germany together in the number of 30+ floors buildings by reaching (446 UAE) compared to [243 UK(130) + Germany(113)]. Today high buildings are considered flagship developments not only in the Arab World but also worldwide that play an important part in regeneration. Tall buildings are likely to continue to be relevant to the master planning of areas with good public transport access and capacity. A successful tall building must adhere to a set of clear urban design guidelines that affect the following areas: edges, use, public space, urban integration and environmental factors. This paper addresses this issue. The challenge for architects, urban designers, and planners in the Arab world is to provide the right type and quality of new space and new place that won't undermine the question of identity. The paper explores the nature of tall buildings in the Arab region and provides examples of the positive and negative transformation of the urban environments in a number of locales. The paper concludes by drawing some guidelines for future development of tall buildings in the Arab World.

Reducing uncertainties in estimation of wind effects on tall buildings using aerodynamic wind tunnel tests

Tall buildings are wind-sensitive structures and could experience high wind-induced effects. Aerodynamic boundary layer wind tunnel testing has been the most commonly used method for estimating wind effects on tall buildings. Design wind effects on tall buildings are estimated through analytical processing of the data obtained from aerodynamic wind tunnel tests. Even though it is widely agreed that the data obtained from wind tunnel testing is fairly reliable the post-test analytical procedures are still argued to have remarkable uncertainties. This research work attempted to assess the uncertainties occurring at different stages of the post-test analytical procedures in detail and suggest improved techniques for reducing the uncertainties. Results of the study showed that traditionally used simplifying approximations, particularly in the frequency domain approach, could cause significant uncertainties in estimating aerodynamic wind-induced responses. Based on identified shortcomings, a more accurate dual aerodynamic data analysis framework which works in the frequency and time domains was developed. The comprehensive analysis framework allows estimating modal, resultant and peak values of various wind-induced responses of a tall building more accurately. Estimating design wind effects on tall buildings also requires synthesizing the wind tunnel data with local climatological data of the study site. A novel copula based approach was developed for accurately synthesizing aerodynamic and climatological data up on investigating the causes of significant uncertainties in currently used synthesizing techniques. Improvement of the new approach over the existing techniques was also illustrated with a case study on a 50 story building. At last, a practical dynamic optimization approach was suggested for tuning structural properties of tall buildings towards attaining optimum performance against wind loads with less number of design iterations.

Analysis and design of tall concrete buildings : an investigation regarding the use of cracked versus un-cracked moment of inertia

A debate is currently prevalent among the structural engineers regarding the use of cracked versus un-cracked moment of inertia of the structural elements in analyzing and designing tall concrete buildings. (The basic definition of a tall building, according to the Journal of Structural Design of Tall Buildings Vol. 13. No. 5, 2004 is a structure that is equal to or greater than 160 feet in height, or 6 stories or greater.) The controversy is the result of differing interpretations of certain ACI (American Concrete Institute) code provisions. The issue is whether designers should use cracked moment of inertia in order to estimate lateral deflection and whether the computed lateral deflection should be used to carry out subsequent second-order analysis (analysis considering the effect of first order lateral deflections on bending moment and shear stresses). On one hand, bending moments and shear forces estimated based on un-cracked moment of inertia of the sections may result in conservative designs by overestimating moments and shears. On the other hand, lateral deflections may be underestimated due to the same analyses resulting in unsafe designs.

Energy-efficient tall buildings design strategies: a holistic approach

The number of tall buildings is increasing as a result of the advances in construction technologies and the rising land prices. These buildings are characterised by their high energy consumption compared to other building types as they rely intensively on mechanical HVAC systems due to the extreme weather conditions associated with the increase in height. However, they present a great opportunity for energy savings. In recent years, it has been noticed the increasing interest in geometry and form of tall buildings, as a result of the evolution of parametric modelling and 3D visualisation tools, on the expense of the environmental aspect. This paper discusses factors affecting the energy consumption in the tall buildings. Through an extensive analysis of Literature, active and passive energy efficient strategies adopted in tall building at various building stages are identified. In addition, the role of architectural design parameters, such as building form, orientation and envelope on the tall building energy performance are highlighted. Finally, a set of guidelines and environmental design strategies to be considered in different phases in order to achieve energy-efficient tall buildings are proposed. These strategies have been categorised into four stages namely early design, conceptualisation, and documentation and operational. A 3D modelling approach was used to visualise and illustrate the proposed strategies in different stages.

Reducing Uncertainties in Estimation of Wind Effects on Tall Buildings Using Aerodynamic Wind Tunnel Tests

Tall buildings are wind-sensitive structures and could experience high wind-induced effects. Aerodynamic boundary layer wind tunnel testing has been the most commonly used method for estimating wind effects on tall buildings. Design wind effects on tall buildings are estimated through analytical processing of the data obtained from aerodynamic wind tunnel tests. Even though it is widely agreed that the data obtained from wind tunnel testing is fairly reliable the post-test analytical procedures are still argued to have remarkable uncertainties. This research work attempted to assess the uncertainties occurring at different stages of the post-test analytical procedures in detail and suggest improved techniques for reducing the uncertainties. Results of the study showed that traditionally used simplifying approximations, particularly in the frequency domain approach, could cause significant uncertainties in estimating aerodynamic wind-induced responses. Based on identified shortcomings, a more accurate dual aerodynamic data analysis framework which works in the frequency and time domains was developed. The comprehensive analysis framework allows estimating modal, resultant and peak values of various wind-induced responses of a tall building more accurately. Estimating design wind effects on tall buildings also requires synthesizing the wind tunnel data with local climatological data of the study site. A novel copula based approach was developed for accurately synthesizing aerodynamic and climatological data up on investigating the causes of significant uncertainties in currently used synthesizing techniques. Improvement of the new approach over the existing techniques was also illustrated with a case study on a 50 story building. At last, a practical dynamic optimization approach was suggested for tuning structural properties of tall buildings towards attaining optimum performance against wind loads with less number of design iterations.

Interactive axial shortening of columns and walls in high rise buildings

Concrete is commonly used as a primary construction material for tall building construction. Load bearing components such as columns and walls in concrete buildings are subjected to instantaneous and long term axial shortening caused by the time dependent effects of "shrinkage", "creep" and "elastic" deformations. Reinforcing steel content, variable concrete modulus, volume to surface area ratio of the elements and environmental conditions govern axial shortening. The impact of differential axial shortening among columns and core shear walls escalate with increasing building height. Differential axial shortening of gravity loaded elements in geometrically complex and irregular buildings result in permanent distortion and deflection of the structural frame which have a significant impact on building envelopes, building services, secondary systems and the life time serviceability and performance of a building. Existing numerical methods commonly used in design to quantify axial shortening are mainly based on elastic analytical techniques and therefore unable to capture the complexity of non-linear time dependent effect. Ambient measurements of axial shortening using vibrating wire, external mechanical strain, and electronic strain gauges are methods that are available to verify pre-estimated values from the design stage. Installing these gauges permanently embedded in or on the surface of concrete components for continuous measurements during and after construction with adequate protection is uneconomical, inconvenient and unreliable. Therefore such methods are rarely if ever used in actual practice of building construction. This research project has developed a rigorous numerical procedure that encompasses linear and non-linear time dependent phenomena for prediction of axial shortening of reinforced concrete structural components at design stage. This procedure takes into consideration (i) construction sequence, (ii) time varying values of Young's Modulus of reinforced concrete and (iii) creep and shrinkage models that account for variability resulting from environmental effects. The capabilities of the procedure are illustrated through examples. In order to update previous predictions of axial shortening during the construction and service stages of the building, this research has also developed a vibration based procedure using ambient measurements. This procedure takes into consideration the changes in vibration characteristic of structure during and after construction. The application of this procedure is illustrated through numerical examples which also highlight the features. The vibration based procedure can also be used as a tool to assess structural health/performance of key structural components in the building during construction and service life.

Using a video camera to measure the radius of the Earth

A simple but accurate method for measuring the Earth’s radius using a video camera is described. A video camera was used to capture a shadow rising up the wall of a tall building at sunset. A free program called ImageJ was used to measure the time it took the shadow to rise a known distance up the building. The time, distance and length of the sidereal day were used to calculate the radius of the Earth. The radius was measured as 6394.3 +/- 118 km, which is within 1.8% of the accepted average value of 6371 km and well within the experimental error. The experiment is suitable as a high school or university project and should produce a value for Earth’s radius within a few per cent at latitudes towards the equator, where at some times of the year the ecliptic is approximately normal to the horizon.

Experiment on Qinghai-Tibet railroad subgrade temperature monitoring based on FBG sensors

Qinghai-Tibet Railway is the longest and highest plateau railway in the world. A long term monitoring system of the stability of the subgrade in the permafrost regions should be put forward immediately to prevent damage to the railway. As it's very difficult to set up the long-distance automatic monitoring system which contains a lot of measure points along the 550 kilometers railway in the permafrost area, we present a subgrade temperature monitor system based on fiber Bragg grating (FBG). In this paper the principles of the FBG was presented, and the feasibility of the FBG sensors in the permafrost area of Qinghai-Tibet plateau was analysized. We embedded fifteen FBG temperature sensors and thermal resistance temperature sensors. A contrast experiment is made while the two kinds of sensors are arranged in the same position. The result of the experiment shows that the accuracy of the FBG temperature sensors is less than 0.1 degrees C. and the FBG sensors can do well in the measurement of pattern which the temperature varies with the depth of the permafrost soil. The result also shows the stability of the FBG sensors in the bad environmental condition of Qinghai-Tibet plateau, which proves the feasibility of the application of FBG sensors and our monitoring system on the Qinghai-Tibet railway.

Edifícios altos – problemas associados e análise estrutural de um caso prático

Com a presente dissertação pretende-se analisar alguns dos problemas associados aos edifícios altos, na fase de projeto, bem como compilar um conjunto de informações e conhecimentos científicos sobre a área abordada. São descritas algumas soluções de sistemas estruturais possíveis de idealizar para edifícios altos. Posteriormente, tendo por base um projeto de estruturas de um edifício com 25 pisos localizado em Luanda, capital de Angola, o objetivo consistiu em analisar estática e dinamicamente o seu comportamento quando solicitado fundamentalmente pelas ações do vento e dos sismos. A análise estrutural foi realizada com recurso a dois softwares de cálculo automático, nomeadamente, o Cypecad e o Robot Structural Analysis Professional e pelos métodos preconizados no Regulamento de Segurança e Ações para estruturas de edifícios e pontes e o Eurocódigo 8 – “Projeto de estruturas para resistência aos sismos”. Aborda-se a temática do faseamento construtivo, assunto que revela algumas limitações dos programas de cálculo utilizados, sendo descrito um método simplificado para prever os seus efeitos em termos de dimensionamento final. Os resultados obtidos permitiram avaliar o bom comportamento da estrutura no que respeita ao cumprimento dos estados limites últimos e de serviço. Conclui-se que o sistema estrutural adotado no modelo em estudo se encontra bem dimensionado relativamente ao colapso e à limitação de danos.

Observations of wind speed profiles over Greater London, UK, using a Doppler lidar

To calculate the potential wind loading on a tall building in an urban area, an accurate representation of the wind speed profile is required. However, due to a lack of observations, wind engineers typically estimate the characteristics of the urban boundary layer by translating the measurements from a nearby reference rural site. This study presents wind speed profile data obtained from a Doppler lidar in central London, UK, during an 8 month observation period. Used in conjunction with wind speed data measured at a nearby airport, the data have been used to assess the accuracy of the predictions made by the wind engineering tools currently available. When applied to multiple changes in surface roughness identified from morphological parameters, the non-equilibrium wind speed profile model developed by Deaves (1981) provides a good representation of the urban wind speed profile. For heights below 500 m, the predicted wind speed remains within the 95% confidence interval of the measured data. However, when the surface roughness is estimated using land use as a proxy, the model tends to overestimate the wind speed, particularly for very high wind speed periods. These results highlight the importance of a detailed assessment of the nature of the surface when estimating the wind speed above an urban surface.

Desenvolvimento de um suporte flexível para ensaios de modelos aeroelátiscos em túnel de vento

Com o desenvolvimento de materiais mais resistentes, técnicas construtivas mais modernas e a crescente valorização dos terrenos nos centros das grandes cidades, criou-se um ambiente propício à construção de edificações mais altas, leves, flexíveis, menos amortecidas, e, portanto, mais susceptíveis a problemas associados à resposta dinâmica frente à ação do vento. Em algumas situações, quando há ressonância, a parcela flutuante da resposta estrutural devido à ação do vento pode chegar a representar 2/3 da resposta total. Os métodos analíticos atualmente existentes para determinação da resposta flutuante induzida pela ação do vento geralmente conduzem a resultados pouco confiáveis. Em vista desse fato, os ensaios em túnel de vento ainda são a ferramenta mais precisa e robusta para o estudo do comportamento dinâmico de estruturas civis. Este trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento de um suporte flexível para ensaios de modelos aeroelásticos de estruturas alteadas, visando a determinação da parcela flutuante da resposta à ação do vento nos dois modos fundamentais de vibração livre (flexão em duas direções ortogonais). Este suporte pode ser empregado em testes de modelos de diferentes geometrias, e permite que, com grande facilidade, sejam ajustados o amortecimento estrutural, rigidez e inércia, individualmente em cada direção. Com o objetivo de verificar o correto funcionamento do equipamento e a validade dos resultados por ele obtidos, foram realizados testes com um modelo do edifício alto padrão “CAARC Standard Tall Building”. No trabalho são apresentados e discutidos os resultados dos ensaios, realizados no Túnel de Vento Professor Joaquim Blessmann, da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.

Quantifying Earthquake Collapse Risk of Tall Steel Braced Frame Buildings Using Rupture-to-Rafters Simulations

This thesis examines collapse risk of tall steel braced frame buildings using rupture-to-rafters simulations due to suite of San Andreas earthquakes. Two key advancements in this work are the development of (i) a rational methodology for assigning scenario earthquake probabilities and (ii) an artificial correction-free approach to broadband ground motion simulation. The work can be divided into the following sections: earthquake source modeling, earthquake probability calculations, ground motion simulations, building response, and performance analysis.

As a first step the kinematic source inversions of past earthquakes in the magnitude range of 6-8 are used to simulate 60 scenario earthquakes on the San Andreas fault. For each scenario earthquake a 30-year occurrence probability is calculated and we present a rational method to redistribute the forecast earthquake probabilities from UCERF to the simulated scenario earthquake. We illustrate the inner workings of the method through an example involving earthquakes on the San Andreas fault in southern California.

Next, three-component broadband ground motion histories are computed at 636 sites in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area by superposing short-period (0.2~s-2.0~s) empirical Green's function synthetics on top of long-period ($>$ 2.0~s) spectral element synthetics. We superimpose these seismograms on low-frequency seismograms, computed from kinematic source models using the spectral element method, to produce broadband seismograms.

Using the ground motions at 636 sites for the 60 scenario earthquakes, 3-D nonlinear analysis of several variants of an 18-story steel braced frame building, designed for three soil types using the 1994 and 1997 Uniform Building Code provisions and subjected to these ground motions, are conducted. Model performance is classified into one of five performance levels: Immediate Occupancy, Life Safety, Collapse Prevention, Red-Tagged, and Model Collapse. The results are combined with the 30-year probability of occurrence of the San Andreas scenario earthquakes using the PEER performance based earthquake engineering framework to determine the probability of exceedance of these limit states over the next 30 years.

A hybrid-parallel framework for the nonlinear seismic analysis of very tall buildings

FRAME3D, a program for the nonlinear seismic analysis of steel structures, has previously been used to study the collapse mechanisms of steel buildings up to 20 stories tall. The present thesis is inspired by the need to conduct similar analysis for much taller structures. It improves FRAME3D in two primary ways.

First, FRAME3D is revised to address specific nonlinear situations involving large displacement/rotation increments, the backup-subdivide algorithm, element failure, and extremely narrow joint hysteresis. The revisions result in superior convergence capabilities when modeling earthquake-induced collapse. The material model of a steel fiber is also modified to allow for post-rupture compressive strength.

Second, a parallel FRAME3D (PFRAME3D) is developed. The serial code is optimized and then parallelized. A distributed-memory divide-and-conquer approach is used for both the global direct solver and element-state updates. The result is an implicit finite-element hybrid-parallel program that takes advantage of the narrow-band nature of very tall buildings and uses nearest-neighbor-only communication patterns.

Using three structures of varied sized, PFRAME3D is shown to compute reproducible results that agree with that of the optimized 1-core version (displacement time-history response root-mean-squared errors are ~〖10〗^(-5) m) with much less wall time (e.g., a dynamic time-history collapse simulation of a 60-story building is computed in 5.69 hrs with 128 cores—a speedup of 14.7 vs. the optimized 1-core version). The maximum speedups attained are shown to increase with building height (as the total number of cores used also increases), and the parallel framework can be expected to be suitable for buildings taller than the ones presented here.

PFRAME3D is used to analyze a hypothetical 60-story steel moment-frame tube building (fundamental period of 6.16 sec) designed according to the 1994 Uniform Building Code. Dynamic pushover and time-history analyses are conducted. Multi-story shear-band collapse mechanisms are observed around mid-height of the building. The use of closely-spaced columns and deep beams is found to contribute to the building's “somewhat brittle” behavior (ductility ratio ~2.0). Overall building strength is observed to be sensitive to whether a model is fracture-capable.