Wind-induced vibrations of buildings: role of transient events

Abstract

The design of tall buildings, in many cases, is governed by habitability limit states, where accelerations predicted from wind tunnel studies emulating stationary, boundary layer flows associated with synoptic winds are compared to accepted standards for occupant comfort. In both the accelerations predicted for these design limit states and the criteria they are evaluated against, tall building design practice has consciously neglected other types of responses that result from more transient wind events, such as thunderstorms, owing to their short duration. In fact, these types of events and the impulse-like responses they induce in dynamically sensitive structures were not even considered in occupant comfort tests on human subjects until very recently. However, full-scale monitoring programmes on tall buildings, and anecdotal reports from their occupants, have verified that these events do occur regularly and are capable of producing accelerations that exceed those generated by their stationary synoptic counterparts at comparable wind speeds, thus generating perceptible motions on more frequent recurrence intervals. Therefore, it becomes important to investigate the dynamic behaviour of tall buildings under transient wind events and to attempt to gain some understanding of the mechanisms causing these large acceleration responses. The present study attempts to do just that, developing analysis frameworks appropriate for nonstationary records and applying them to full-scale data to enable rare insights into the dynamics of tall buildings under transient wind events, particularly those buildings with marked amplitude dependence and coupling between lateral and torsional modes.

Wind-Induced Fatigue and Asymmetric Damage in a Timber Bridge

“…Another point discussed in this article is that superimposition of transient, dynamic wind effects on semi-static (quasi-steady state) wind effects is a problem known since long [ 30 ], but its significance was recently only realized even for tall buildings [ 31 ]. In this study, impacts of such superimposition are examined for a small structure.…”

Award-winning papers in 2011

“…The T K Hsieh Award, presented annually to the authors of the best paper published by the Institution in the field of structural and soil vibration, was awarded to Kijewski-Correa and Bentz (2011).…”

Monitoring dynamic characteristics of 600 m+ Shanghai Tower during two consecutive typhoons

“…Based on the approach, Kijewski‐Correa and Pirnia 17 studied the effects of coupling, beat phenomenon, amplitude dependence, and structural system type on dynamic properties, as well as correlating observed periods of vibration against finite element predictions. Besides, they also analyzed the dynamic properties of a 245.7 m high building in Boston, 16 a 264 m high building 16–18 in Seoul, and four tall buildings 19 in Chicago under wind load. Quan et al 20 identified the natural frequencies and damping ratios of the Shanghai World Financial Center based on the measured data by using HHT and RDT.…”