Effect of Structural Shape on Seismic Response of Air Traffic Control Tower

Abstract

Air Traffic Control Towers (ATCT) is one of the obligatory infrastructures for the airport to control the takeoff and landing of airplanes. The primary purpose of ATCT is to prevent collisions and shape the flow of air traffic. Due to a lack of adequate information about the seismic analysis, the performance of ATCT is generally considered to be the same as that of normal structures. However, the performance and demands of ATC towers differ significantly from common structures. In the present study, the analysis of ATCT for different structural shapes (viz., Hexagonal, Octagonal, Pentagonal, Square) with a height of 55m has been investigated. The structural performance of these models has been studied by different time history analysis using commercial software ETABs. The results exhibited that the performance of octagonal and hexagonal configurations was effectively better for seismic loads as compared to the pentagonal and square configuration in respect of story displacement, story drifts, story shear, and time periods. The seismic analysis also shows that the octagonal shape attracted larger base shear than pentagonal, hexagonal, and square shaped ATCT. However, due to more lateral resisting capacity, the drifts and displacements are found to be least.