Effects of Corner Modification on the Wind-Induced Responses of High-Rise Buildings

Abstract

Aerodynamic optimization of building geometry has received significant attention in the design community. In this paper, a process with the high-frequency force balance (HFFB) technique to determine the most effective mitigation measure and the synchronized pressure integration (SPI) technique to verify the effect is developed for the aerodynamic optimization of high-rise buildings. Then, the process is applied to a 318 m-tall high-rise building. Tests show that the wind force on the building will not be symmetrical about the wind azimuth due to the interfering effect. The standard deviation of the base bending moment in the cross-wind direction is much larger than that in the along-wind direction. It indicates that the cross-wind loads will be dominated, providing a remarkable building height. The aerodynamic treatment of corner modifications has a considerable benefit in reducing the cross-wind loads and responses. Among the four corner modifications, the model with a 10% roundness radius to width ratio has the best mitigation effect in the along wind and cross-wind direction. Furthermore, the mean and extreme base overturning moments obtained by the SPI and the HFFB tests almost coincided with wind azimuth with acceptable discrepancy.