Wind-induced pounding of tall buildings

Abstract

Pounding of adjacent structures under lateral loads (e.g., earthquake and wind) due to proximity has been a major cause of building damage in the past. The effects of pounding can be mitigated by providing a suitable gap distance between structures, adequate shock absorbers or by designing for the additional pounding loads. However, if not properly considered, these abnormal supplementary loads can damage the structures, notably when the attentive structure experiences a dynamic vibration in an out-of-phase order. Multiple pounding incidents have been reported to occur under lateral loads, which resulted in local and global damages. With the new generation of tall buildings, which are becoming taller and more flexible, these structures are becoming more susceptible to wind-induced pounding due to the large sway developed during high wind problematic affairs. The study first investigates wind-induced pounding forces of two equal height structures with similar dynamic properties. This will first rely on using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) modelling for the wind load evaluations. Then, the wind loads will be extracted from the LES models and applied to a Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis software to determine the examined structures’ deflections, minimum separation gap distance, and pounding forces. To correlate a reasonable mathematical formula, training data values must be prepared. This will include varying values of the structure’s heights, applied wind velocities, flexure of the structure, and the separation distance between the examined buildings. Lastly, a Genetic Algorithm (GA) is then utilized with varying parameters of the tall structures to correlate the minimum separation gap distance and maximum pounding force that can be performed. To achieve a more accurate mapping for the trained database, the more complex the mathematical formula will be developed.