Acceleration Response and Serviceability Performance of a 51-Story Building during Typhoon Aere

Abstract

The Shin Kong Tower located in Taipei City has a height of 244.15 m. It was the tallest building in northern Taiwan when it was built in 1993. This super tall building is susceptible to severe vibrations induced by strong winds. The safety of building structures and contents as well as the comfort of occupants under such strong forces as typhoons remain a major engineering concern. In order to improve our understanding of building structural responses, records of a structural array in the 51-story SK Building in Taipei from the Typhoon Aere are analyzed. In addition, wind data measured at the Taipei Meteorological Station are also used. As a result, the measured data during Typhoon Aere show that the standard deviation of acceleration response at top of the SK Building increases with a power of 2.275 of the wind speed in the longitudinal direction, and a power of 2.302 of the wind speed in transverse direction. It is also observed that the acceleration responses in the transverse direction were generally larger than those in the longitudinal direction during the typhoon. This is mainly due to greater stiffness of the building in the longitudinal direction than the transverse direction. Furthermore, the field measurement data clearly demonstrate that serviceability of the SK Building met the criteria for occupant comfort during Typhoon Aere.