Structural Analysis of High-rise Buildings under Horizontal Loads: A Study on the Piedmont Region Headquarters Tower in Turin

Abstract

Background: When a high-rise building is designed, the main aim is to limit transversal displacements. In addition, when vertical bracings, made up of thin open sections, are subjected to external torsion, warping and secondary torsional moment stresses arise which need to be evaluated using Vlasov’s Theory. Objective: This work analyzes the Piedmont Region Headquarters Tower, using an analytical formulation which enables the calculation of structural displacements and stresses. Methods: The analytical formulation used in the static and dynamic analysis of the structure was implemented using Matlab computation code. A computational model was also created using a commercial Finite Element Code to validate the results. Results: The results obtained with the analytical model were compared with those obtained with the FEM model. The transversal displacements, bending, torsional, and axial stresses in the vertical bracings were calculated, along with the principal natural frequencies of the structure. Conclusion: It has been proved that analytical calculation codes are a good tool for the preliminary design of a high-rise building. In particular, the proposed formulation, which has only three degrees of freedom per floor, provided results similar to those obtained using a FEM model. The great advantage of this analytical code is to speed up the computation time, which is proportional to the square of the degrees of freedom. In a FEM model, these have orders of magnitude greater than in the analytical model. Moreover, the proposed formulation allows the load distribution between the structural elements to be determined.

Defensible Spaces

“…From the perspective of the system efficiency, it economically provides adequate stiffness to resist wind and most of the lateral loads affecting the building up to 20 stories [24]. Applying this system to low-rise buildings will make them more resistant to lateral loads and may resist the pressure produced from a blast or bombing.…”

“…Accordingly, when applying the core system separately in tall buildings the effect of lateral loads from outside will appear, which may cause the failure of the core itself and leave the buildings to hazards (Figure 5a), while connecting the cores in high-rise buildings will act in a defensible manner towards the lateral loads. Figure 5b shows the proposed usage of the connected core in low-rise buildings in defending against the lateral forces from the outside due to the pressure of loads [24,25]. Accordingly, when applying the core system separately in tall buildings the effect of lateral loads from outside will appear, which may cause the failure of the core itself and leave the buildings to hazards (Figure 5a), while connecting the cores in high-rise buildings will act in a defensible manner towards the lateral loads.…”

“…Accordingly, when applying the core system separately in tall buildings the effect of lateral loads from outside will appear, which may cause the failure of the core itself and leave the buildings to hazards (Figure 5a), while connecting the cores in high-rise buildings will act in a defensible manner towards the lateral loads. Figure 5b shows the proposed usage of the connected core in low-rise buildings in defending against the lateral forces from the outside due to the pressure of loads [24,25]. high-rise building.…”

Diagrid System Coupled With Shear Walls: Analytical Investigation on the Dynamical Response in Tall Buildings

“…Furthermore, the MBM has been recently integrated within a more general semi-analytical framework, the so-called General Algorithm (GA). The GA has been developed by some of the authors in the last decades and allows to investigate the structural behavior of three-dimensional buildings made up of several vertical resisting elements, such as frames, tubes and shear walls [9][10][11][12]. Very recently, we have inserted the MBM within the GA environment in order to perform the structural analysis of an external diagrid tube coupled with internal shear walls [13].…”

A New Modular Structural System for Tall Buildings Based on Tetrahedral Configuration

“…Different geometrical patterns for diagrid structures were also explored by Tomei et al [8] by performing an optimization process based on weight minimization using genetic algorithms. In the contribution of Lacidogna et al [9] the analysis of external diagrid systems coupled with closed-section and open-section shear walls was performed by recurring to the General Algorithm [10] for the assessment of displacements and stresses [11,12].…”