Across-wind loads of typical tall buildings

Previous studies have indicated that the across-wind dynamic responses of super-tall buildings are usually larger than the along-wind ones. With the increase of heights, the across-wind dynamic response of super-tail buildings has been a problem of great concern. In this paper, 15 typical tall building models are tested with high-frequency force balance technique in a wind tunnel to obtain the first-mode generalized across-wind dynamic forces. New formulas for the power spectra of the across-wind dynamic forces, the coefficients of base moment and shear force are then derived. Parametric analyses of the effects of factors on the across-wind loads of the buildings are performed. Besides, a SDOF aeroelastic model of a square tall building with an aspect ratio of 6 is selected from the above buildings and is tested to investigate its across-wind dynamic response and aerodynamic damping characteristics. The power spectrum of the across-wind force of the square building is employed to compute its across-wind dynamic responses with and without considering the effect of the aerodynamic damping. The computed responses are then compared with the corresponding responses from the aeroelastic model test to verify the present formulas of the across-wind loads of buildings. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.