Wind-induced response monitoring of large-span air-supported membrane structure coal-shed under the influence of typhoons

Abstract

Air-supported membrane structures are being widely used for coal-sheds or the enclosed buildings of stockyards. With the emergence of new functional requirements for buildings, the demand for an increase in both the span and size of air-supported membrane structures has been rapidly increasing in China. Till now, the largest span and length of structures in China have reached 200 m and 1300 m respectively. For air-supported membrane structures, the load-bearing capacity comes from the difference in air pressure between the interior and exterior, which causes the structure to be sensitive to wind and snow loads. This paper studies the wind-induced response of a constructed air-supported membrane structure for a coal-shed cover building with a span of 115 m and width of 317 m, which is located in the southeast coastal city of Yueqing in Zhejiang Province. It is well known that the typhoon-induced response is closely related to the safety and stability of the structure. To ensure the safety of the structure, a newly improved Structure Health Monitoring System (SHMS) has been implemented on a membrane building which is one of the largest scale field monitoring projects anywhere in the world, from where the wind-induced response data was obtained for this paper. Based on the measured wind speeds, the wind pressure distribution coefficient of the membrane surface is derived by numerical simulation with Fluent software. Meanwhile, the displacement response is also calculated by ANSYS APDL. Detailed simulation results and field measurement data are compared for the displacement response caused by Typhoon “Chan-Thu”. It is shown that the former is larger than the latter with the treatment of equivalent wind load. However, the extreme value of the displacement response of the structure with consideration of fluctuating wind load is relatively much more consistent with the measured value. In conclusion, the wind-induced displacement response calculated by the equivalent static wind load method controlled by the principle of maximum displacement equivalence is suitable for engineering applications and wind resistance design, which will result in a slightly higher displacement response evaluation than the real cases.