EQUIVALENT STATIC WIND LOADS VS. DATABASE-ASSISTED DESIGN OF TALL BUILDINGS: AN ASSESSMENT

Area of Science:

• Structural Engineering
• Wind Engineering
• Computational Mechanics

Background:

• Database-assisted Design (DAD) offers an accurate and user-friendly approach to designing tall buildings against wind loads.
• Traditional methods involving iterative design can be cumbersome, prompting interest in alternative approaches like equivalent static wind loads (ESWLs).

Purpose of the Study:

• To present and assess a simple procedure for calculating ESWLs that can approximate the results obtained by DAD.
• To evaluate the accuracy of ESWL-based design compared to DAD, particularly concerning demand-to-capacity indexes (DCIs).

Main Methods:

• Development of a procedure for calculating ESWLs using an effective multiple points-in-time (MPIT) method.
• Rigorous and transparent accounting for wind directionality in the ESWL calculation.
• A case study comparing ESWL and DAD procedures on a tall building, using DAD results as a benchmark.

Main Results:

• ESWLs calculated using ten points-in-time (60 wind loading cases) yielded DCIs significantly closer to DAD benchmark values than those using fewer points (e.g., four points, 24 cases).
• For the studied building, ESWL-based DCIs approximated DAD-yielded DCIs within approximately 3%.
• The approximation accuracy of ESWLs decreased for designs dominated by a single unfavorable wind direction and is generally unsuitable for complex building shapes.

Conclusions:

• The proposed ESWL procedure provides a reasonably accurate approximation of DAD results for certain tall building designs.
• While ESWLs can be a viable alternative, DAD remains the safest and most risk-consistent design option, especially for complex structures or dominant wind directions.