Eureka Tower Melbourne

Australia’s tallest
Shanghai Tower (632 m tall) （632米高的上海
中心大厦）
151 Incheon Tower –
South Korea
Virtual Wind Tunnel work at
University of Melbourne
Taipei Financial Centre
Rough corner can
(101 Stories, 508 m tall) reduce Vortex
Shedding effects
KINGDOM tower -Jeddah
 Types of Wind Design
• Environmental wind studies to study the wind effects
on the surrounding environment caused by erecting a tall building.

• Wind loads for the facade - to assess design wind pressures

throughout the surface area of the building to
design the cladding system

• Wind loads for the structure - to determine the design wind load
to design the lateral load resisting structural system
 Design Criteria
• Stability against overturning, uplift and/or sliding
of the structure as a whole.

• Strength of the structural components of the building are required to be

withstood without failure during the life of the structure.

• Serviceability where interstorey and overall deflections

are within acceptable limits.
WIND DRIFT DESIGN
(a) To limit damage to the cladding on the
building facade and to partitions and
interior finishes;
(b) To reduce the effects of motion
perceptibility;
(c) To limit the P- or secondary loading
effects.
 Using CFD to study the wind effects on tall buildings
Stream line of a flow over a building model – Vertical view & Pressure distribution
 Torsion
Along-Wind

Cross-Wind
Wind Direction
Examples of Problems/Mistakes 1

• Wind Related Problems

Pedestrian Comfort
Pedestrian Comfort
Ug (m/s) Tg Wind effect
(s)
4.0 5 Clothing flaps
5.0-6.0 5 Hair is disturbed/ Hair disarranged
10.0 3 Irregular footsteps, walking difficult to
control
3 Difficult to hold umbrella (wind
tunnel)
12.0 5 Violent flapping of clothes
10 Appreciably slowed into the wind
15.0 3 Walking difficult; dangerous for
elderly person
3 Impossible to hold umbrella (wind
tunnel)
16.0 2 Blown sideways
10 Appreciably slowed into the wind
18.0 10 Almost halted in the wind
10 Uncontrolled tottering walking
downwind
20.0 3 Great difficulty with balance in gusts
23.0 3 People blown over by gusts
24.0 2 Unbalanced, grabbing at supports 26
Examples of Problems/Mistakes 2

• Wind Related Problems

Down-wash
Examples of Problems/Mistakes 3
• Wind Related Problems

Acceleration between the buildings

Examples of Problems/Mistakes 4

Balconies
 CODE APPROACHES
A building structure is considered
to be wind sensitive if it possesses
the following two properties:
a) Height or length-to breadth ratio of the
superstructure is greater than 5.
b) A first-mode frequency of vibration of
the building is less than 1 Hz.
 Variation of Wind Speed with Time
Velocity,V

Vz Vz

Time, t
3-sec gust wind speed Vz is used to calculate the forces,
pressures and moments on the structure.
Vs = V20yr = serviceability limit state design speed having an estimated probability of
exceedence of 5 % in any one year, for the serviceability limit states.
Vp = V50yr = permissible, or working stress design wind speed and can be obtained
directly from Vu using the relation Vp = Vu/(1.5)0.5
Vu= V1000yr = ultimate limit state design wind speed having an estimated probability
of exceedence of 5 % in a lifetime of 50 years, for the ultimate limit states.
The dynamic wind pressure at height z is given by
q z = 0.6 Vz 2 *10 −3
where
Vz = the design gust wind speed at height z, in meters per second.
= VM(z,cat) MzMtMi
where
V = is the basic wind speed

F = C q A
z p, e z z
 Dynamic Response Factor

B = a background factor, which is a measure of the slowly varying background

component of the fluctuating response caused by the lower frequency wind speed
variations
S = a size factor to account for the correlation of pressures over a structure

E = a spectrum of turbulence in the approaching wind stream

AS1170.2 2002

AS1170.2 2011
Cross-wind Forces

Cross-wind Moment
Types of Damping
Systems
Tuned Mass Damper (TMD)
Distributed Viscous Dampers
Tuned Liquid Column Dampers (TLCD
Impact Type Dampers
Visco-Elastic Dampers
Semi-Active Dampers
Active Dampers
One of the TMDs designed TMD in the Taipei Financial Centre Building
for the sky bridge legs
of the PETRONAS Towers (12 TMDs were
(508 m. tall). Note the observation deck.
installed
three in each of the four legs)
COMFORT CRITERIA: HUMAN RESPONSE TO
BUILDING MOTIONS

• There are no generally accepted internationally

standards for comfort criteria

• Acceleration is the predominant parameter in

determining the nature of human response to vibration
 Human Perception Levels
Range Acceleration (m/s2) Effect

1 < 0.05 Humans cannot perceive

motion
2 0.05 – 0.10 Sensible people can perceive

3 0.1 – 0.25 Majority of people will

perceive motion
4 0.25 – 0.4 Desk work become difficult
or almost impossible
5 0.4 – 0.5 People strongly perceive
motion
6 0.5 – 0.6 Most people cannot tolerate
motion and unable to walk

7 0.6 – 0.7 People cannot walk

8 > 0.85 Objects fall down and people
may be injured
Horizontal acceleration criteria for occupancy comfort in buildings

1
Melbourne’s (1988) maximum peak horizontal acceleration criteria
based on Irwin (1986) and Chen and Robertson (1973), for T = 600
seconds, and return period R years
Horizontal acceleration m/s

RETURN
< PERIODS

10 YEARS
0.1 5 YEARS
1 YEAR

Irwin’s E2 Curve and ISO 6897 (1984)

Curve 1, maximum standard deviation
horizontal criteria for 10 minutes in 5
years return period for a building.

0.01
0.01 0.1 1 10
Frequency no (Hz)
ISO 10137
Peak Along-wind acceleration

Cross-wind Acceleration
WIND TUNNEL TESTING
Wind tunnel testing is now common practice
for design of the very tall buildings. In many
cases, owners of proposed moderately tall
buildings are also encouraged to allow wind
tunnel testing, as the costs associated with
such testing is off set by the substantial
savings in the building costs, due to the
reduced design wind loading.
Types of Wind Tunnel Tests
The determination of wind loading effects to
enable the design of a wind resistant structure.

The flow fields induced around the structure for

example as it effects pedestrian comfort and safety
at ground level or air intake concentration levels of
exhaust pollutants.

Modelling techniques commonly used around the

world: Rigid pressure model, Areoelastic model,
Rigid high-frequency base balance model
Cross-wind

M
c

wind
direction
Building
M M = G M Along-wind
z a z
Interference
Buildings of similar size located in close proximity to the
proposed building can cause large increases in cross-wind
responses. The designer should not only consider the
existing conditions but make allowance for future changes
in the surrounding area during the design life of the
structure.
 y
North

20° Wind Direction

b= 53 m

h = 197 m
torey Building

South Elevation East Elevation

2.00e+9

1.00e+9

My max(-) My max(+)

0.00e+0
My

-1.00e+9

My max(-)=My max(+) * 0.5

Mx

-2.00e+9
-2.00e+9 -1.00e+9 0.00e+0 1.00e+9 2.00e+9
 48 STOREY BUILDING
Comparison of Wind tunnel, Static & Dynamic Wind responses

200

TC2-50 (Dynamic)

TC2 - 50 (Static)
Height (m)

Wind Tunnel

100

0
0e+0 5e+5 1e+6 2e+6 2e+6 2e+6

Bending Moment (kNm)