Investigation of wind load on 1,000 m-high super-tall buildings based on HFFB tests

Abstract

This paper studies the wind load on 1,000 m-high super-tall buildings and provides basic reference for design, including the utilization of passive and active control devices. High-frequency force balance wind tunnel tests of super-tall buildings with different height are carried out to investigate the effects of building height and wind flow on the wind load. Both monsoon and typhoon climate wind flows are simulated based on target models suggested in literatures. The simulation of typhoon climate wind flows is carried out by a newly developed technique. The analysis of the experimental results confirms that the aerodynamic force is very sensitive to both building height and wind flow. In monsoon climate, the turbulence intensity decreases on increasing the height above ground. Thus, on increasing the building height, vortex shedding becomes increasingly intense and excites stronger structural vibrations in the across-wind direction, though the across-wind fluctuating overturning moment coefficient is almost the same. In typhoon climate, both the mean and the fluctuating overturning moment coefficients increase with the building height. This is mainly caused by the decreasing mean wind speed. The vortex excitation becomes weaker on increasing the building height, and this phenomenon is different from that observed in the monsoon climate. In order to better explain vortex-shedding excitation, a new parameter referred to as the characteristic turbulence intensity is defined herein as a weighted mean value of the turbulence intensity in the range of the building height. It provides a robust interpretation of the vortex excitation of super-tall buildings located in different wind flow and climate conditions.