THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF TALL AND SPECIAL BUILDINGS Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build.

18, 3757 (2009) Published online 17 August 2007 in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/tal.393

ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE OF HIGH-RISE BUILDING UNDER WIND ACTION WITH INTERFERENCE EFFECTS FROM ONE AND TWO TALL BUILDINGS
Z. N. XIE1,2 AND M. GU1*
1

State Key Laboratory for Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China 2 Department of Civil Engineering, Shantou University, Shantou, Peoples Republic of China

SUMMARY Systematic studies on the across-wind dynamic interference effects on two and three tall buildings are presented in this paper. It is found that surrounding and upstream interfering building(s) can signicantly affect the acrosswind load on the interfered principal building. Generally speaking, two interfering buildings can cause more adverse dynamic effects on the principal building than a single one does. The results show that the maximum interference factor (IF) among three buildings increases 80% over that between two buildings in terrain category B which has been dened in Chinese load code for design of building structures; a noticeable difference of 29% of IF is also observed in terrain category D. Vortex shedding from the upstream buildings can lead to vortexinduced resonance, resulting in excessive across-wind loads on the downstream building. Although interference effects in terrain category D are much smaller than those in exposure category B, the maximum IF is found to be 183 in the case of three buildings with the same size in terrain category D and 227 in other congurations. Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

1.

INTRODUCTION

In structural design, the evaluation of the wind loads on buildings is mainly based on industrial codes and standards. These specications are generally obtained from wind tunnel tests performed on isolated structures in an open terrain. However, wind loads on buildings in realistic environments may be quite different from those measured on isolated buildings. Surrounding or upstream buildings can signicantly increase or decrease the ow-induced forces on a building, depending mainly on the arrangement and geometry of these buildings, wind velocity and direction, type of upstream terrain, etc. The phenomenon is commonly known as interference effect and must be evaluated properly (Kwok, 1995; Khanduri et al., 1998). There are two main kinds of effects involved in the above-mentioned problems, namely the static interference effects and the dynamic interference effects. Previous studies have shown that the dynamic interference effects are more signicant and more severe than the static effects. There are many key factors, as mentioned above, affecting the dynamic wind loads on the buildings. However, due to the huge amount of experimental workload, it is too difcult to deal with all these parameters in detail. Moreover, most previous investigations have focused on the interference effects between two buildings (Bailey and Kwok, 1985; Kareem, 1987; Sakamoto and Haniu, 1988; Taniike, 1992), since the inclusion of another building into the twin-building conguration makes the problem much more

* Correspondence to: Ming Gu, State Key Laboratory for Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tonji University, Shanghai 200092, Peoples Republic of China. E-mail: minggu@mail.tongji.edu.cn

Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Z. N. XIE AND M. GU

complicated. The interference effects on three or more buildings have not been studied in detail so far. This paper presents a detailed investigation on the across-wind dynamic interference effects on two and three tall buildings on the basis of the high-frequency force balance technique. In order to compare the present study with the previous results, detailed analyses of the interference effects between two buildings are also carried out. A Windows-based software platform, integrating articial neural network, statistics and spectrum computations, is developed to analyze the huge amount of sampling data from the tests, model the interference characteristics, and draw different interference factor contours. Database technique is also employed to manage the experiment results. 2. 2.1 Wind tunnel DESCRIPTION OF EXPERIMENTS

The wind tunnel tests are conducted in the STDX-1 boundary layer wind tunnel of the Department of Civil Engineering at Shantou University. The main test section of STDX-1 for the building model is 20 m long, 3 m wide, and 2 m high. The test section has an adjustable roof, which provides a negligible pressure gradient in the downstream direction. The maximum wind speed can reach 45 m/s. According to the Chinese load code (GB50009-2001, 2002), the terrain categories B and D, which have been dened in Chinese load code for design of building structures (2001), are simulated in the test section by means of spires, barriers and roughness elements. The simulated wind proles V/Vg and turbulence intensity distributions Iu (%) for the two categories are shown in Figure 1, where Vg is the wind speed at the gradient wind height. I u (%)
0 1.0 0.9
Category B

12
Iu

16
V/Vg

20

0.8 0.7 0.6 z/Zg 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.2 0.4

Category D

=0.16 =0.30

0.6 V/Vg

0.8

Figure 1. Wind velocity proles and turbulence intensity distributions

Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

39

In order to assure the reliability of the experiment, a standard CAARC (Commonwealth Advisory Aeronautical Research Council of Canada) tall building model of a 1/300 scale is rst tested. Figure 2 shows the comparison between the power spectrum density (PSD) of the across-wind overturning moment from the present test and the result given by Obasaju (1992). It can be seen from the gure that the agreement is reasonably good. 2.2 Equipment, models, experimental arrangements

The measurements in this paper are carried out by means of a Nitta universal forcemoment sensor model No. UFS-4515A100 and the attached signal conditioner and amplier. The technical specications for the sensor are shown in Table 1. The conditioned and amplied analog signal from the sensor is ltered by the low-pass lters in the system, transmitted to a Scanivalve Zoc/EIM-16 module, and eventually converted quickly by the Scanivalve sampling platform. The lowest natural frequency of the model-balance system is 112 Hz, which is much higher than the concerned frequency range of the aerodynamic forces acting on the building models.

10

10

Obasaju (1992) This paper

f S(f )/ 2

10

-1

10

-2

10

-3

10

-4

10

-3

10

-2

10

-1

10

f D/VH
Figure 2. Normalized across-wind overturning moment spectra for a CAARC tall building model

Table 1. Specications of Nitta UFS-4515A100 sensor Component Fx, Fy Fz Mx, My, Mz Full-scale range 440 N 880 N 51 N m Accuracy Linearity: 02% full scale Hysteresis: 02% full scale

Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

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Z. N. XIE AND M. GU

A 600 mm tall and 100 mm wide square model, made of light foam and skinned with lightweight wood, is used for the tested or principal building. The other relevant parameters of the prototypal principal building are: height 240 m; breadth 40 m; structural damping 2% of critical damping; and natural frequency 02 Hz for both sway base modes. Five other types of square building models are used as the interfering buildings. These interfering buildings have the same height h as the principal building but different breadths of 05b, 075b, 10b, 15b and 20b, where b (=100 mm) is the breadth of the principal building model. All building models are oriented with one face normal to the wind, while the centre-to-centre spacing among them varies in the along-wind direction (x) and the across-wind direction (y) in a coordinate grid shown in Figure 3.

2.3

Formulation

According to the theory of high-frequency base force balance (Tschanz and Davenport, 1983), the PSD and the RMS value of the dynamic base moment response of the principal building, SMD( f ) and sMD, may be written as SM D ( f ) = H ( f ) SMS ( f ) s MD = in which
2

(1) (2)

H ( f ) SMS ( f )df s Ms 1 +

p 1 c 0 SMS ( c 0 ) 2 4 z0 s MS

-3.2b A,B: Interfering buildings C: Principal building is at (x,y)=(0,0) b Wind B x 10.1b 9.1b 8.1b 7.1b 6.1b 5.1b 4.1b 3.1b 2.1b 1.1b 0.8b y 1.6b A 2.4b 3.2b x y -2.4b -1.6b -0.8b C

Figure 3. XY coordinate grid for positions of interfering buildings

Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

41 (3)

H( f ) =

1 f f 1 f + 2z 0 f 0 0
2 2 2

is the mechanical admittance of the principal building; cSMS ( c ) denotes the dimensionless PSD of 2 s MS the base moment; MS(t) is the base bending moment or the rst generalized wind force on the building assuming a linear mode, which can be directly measured by the high-frequency base force balance; sMS is the RMS value of MS(t); c 0 = f0 D is the reduced natural frequency; D is the characteristic VH breadth of the structure; and VH is the mean velocity at the top of the structure. The reciprocal of the reduced frequency c0 is the reduced velocity, i.e. Vr = 1 VH = c0 f0 D (4)

Thus one can nd that the response dynamic base moment varies with the reduced velocity. Considering the effects of the nearby buildings, the across-wind interference effects on the principal building are commonly expressed in terms of an interference factor (IF) given by

IF =

s MD of the principal building under interference s MD of the isolated pricipal building

(5)

where sMD is the RMS of the dynamic response of the across-wind base moment as dened in Equation (2). 3. 3.1 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Conguration of two buildings of equal size

The across-wind dynamic interference effects between two identical buildings are measured and compared with those obtained by Bailey and Kwok (1985) at a reduced velocity of 6. It can be found that there is a good general consistency between the two studies, as shown in Figure 4. Figure 5 shows the IF distribution of the same conguration in uniform ow and terrain category D. From the contours one can nd that the across-wind dynamic interference effects are strongly affected by the upstream terrain. The interference factors decrease rapidly with increase in terrain roughness. The maximum IF decreases from 65 in uniform ow to about 18 in terrain category B and then to about 12 in terrain category D at a reduced velocity of 6. Figure 6 presents the distributions of the interference factor contours for different reduced velocities. The list of contours shows both the common behaviours and the differences. It can be seen that the critical upstream location of the interfering building is in region (4b, 2b)(10b, 35b), where interference factors are tested up to 22 in terrain category B and about 12 in terrain category D. Since the shielding and the high-speed shedding wake depress the vortex shedding of the downstream building, interference factors of less than 10 are measured when the upstream interfering building is located at the region (referred to as shielding region) near the principal building. The strongest
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

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Z. N. XIE AND M. GU
-4 -3.5 1.77 1.6 1. 4 1.2 1.0 1. 0 1.2 1.34 10 (a) 9 8 7 6 5 x/b 4 3 -3 -2.5 -2 0.8 0.6 -1.5 -1 y/b
y/b
2 5

1.4 2

-4 -3.5 -3 -2.5
1.6

1.2

1
1
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10

1.8
0.4

-2 -1.5 -1
0.8

1.2

0.
1.2

6
1.4
1.2

1.2

(b)

5 x/b

C0 0

Figure 4. Comparison of the across-wind interference factor for twin buildings with previous studies (Vr = 6): (a) Bailey and Kwok (1984) in open country with a = 015; (b) Present result in terrain category B with a = 016
5.5
5

1
1.5

-3 -2.5 -2

2 2.5 3 3.5

1.
1

4.
6

0.5 1.5 3 2. 2 43 . 5 5

-1.5 -1

5.5

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1.

10

(a)
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5 x/b

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1

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-2 -1.5 -1

0.8 0 .9

0.9

0.9

0.6
0. 8 0.9

10

(b)

5 x/b

C 0

Figure 5. Interference factor contours of twin-building congurations in other terrains (Vr = 6): (a) uniform ow; (b) terrain category D
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

y/b

y/b

6. 5

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1. 1

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ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

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shielding location is found at (11b, 16b), where the minimum value of the interference factor is recorded to be 02. The strongest shielded effects are found at a reduced velocity of 10 because it is the critical velocity for an isolated building. The shedding wake from an existing nearby building disturbs the vortex shedding of the principal building and reduces the across-wind response, resulting in a much lesser effect compared with the isolated case. A new signicant interfering location, which has not been reported in the previous studies, is found in the side-by-side building arranged at (0, 24b) at which the interference factor is recorded as 256 at a reduced velocity of 8. The reason may be that the existing side-by-side building speeds up the velocity of incidence ow that hits at the principal building. This phenomenon will be discussed in detail in the following sections. 3.2 Conguration of three buildings with equal size

3.2.1 Side-by-side arrangements For the three-equal-building conguration in terrain category B, the critical positions for the acrosswind dynamic interference effects are also found in the side-by-side arrangement of three buildings like the twin-building conguration mentioned above. In this case, the critical locations are found at (0, 32b) and (0, 32b), where a maximum interference factor is found at a reduced velocity of 7 in uniform ow eld and at 8 in the other two shear ow elds. The results are listed in Table 2. A maximum interference factor of 455 is recorded in terrain category B, while the factor is 253 in the side-by-side twin-building arrangements. Figure 7 gives the typical normalized spectra of the across-wind overturning moments of the principal building with and without the presence of the two side-by-side arranged interfering buildings. It can be seen that the spectrum changes noticeably with the presence of the interfering buildings. The peak of the spectrum rises signicantly and shifts to the right, indicating that the shedding frequency of the principal building becomes higher than that in the isolated case and the vortex-induced resonance will occur at a smaller reduced velocity. The results also show that, due to the narrow pipe effect, the mean along-wind overturning moment with interfering buildings at the above-mentioned critical locations is increased by 10% over that without interfering buildings. This increase of the mean along-wind overturning moment indicates the increase of the equivalent wind speed that approaches the principal building. The speeding up of the incidence ow will enhance the strength of the shedding vortices and the vortex shedding frequency and, eventually, leads to a pronounced across-wind resonance at a smaller reduced velocity. Figure 8 shows the variation of the across-wind dynamic interference factor with the reduced velocity for the two interfering buildings located at the critical positions of (0, 32b). It can be seen that the critical reduced velocity is 8 and the corresponding interference factor is 455. 3.2.2 Distribution of the critical positions Table 3 shows the rst ve maximum interference factors and the corresponding critical locations of interfering buildings for the three-building conguration. The recorded maximum interference factor is found to be 455. Meanwhile, the rst three critical locations of the interfering buildings are found in the side-by-side arrangement and the other two in staggered arrangement. The critical locations mentioned here are quite different from those in the conclusion drawn by Saunders and Melbourne (1980), in which the positions of two interfering buildings were simplied and conned to the sideby-side arrangement and were symmetrical to the longitudinal x-axis. The results show that the interference effects for the three-building conguration are indeed more complex than the twin-building conguration. Compared with the results for the twin-building conguration in Figure 6, the rst maximum interference factor of the three-building conguration has
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

44
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Z. N. XIE AND M. GU
1

-3 -2.5 -2

1.2

1. 8

1 .6

0.

-1.5 -1

0.6

1.4

1 .4

10

(a)

5 x/b

2
1

C 0

1.8

1.6

-3 -2.5
0 .8

0.6

-1.5
0.4
0.8 1 1. 1.4 2

1.
1. 2

-1

10

(b)

5 x/b
2.2

C 0

1. 8

-3 2.53 -2.5 -2 -1.5

1 .8

1.4 1.2

2 .2

1.6

1 .6

1.4

0.6 0.4 0.2 1 1 .2 0.8

1 .6

-1

10

(c)

5 x/ b

C 0

an increase of 79% over that of the twin-building conguration, and 72% for the second maximum value. The results indicate that at the strongest interference position in the twin-building conguration another equal-sized interfering building can produce more signicant across-wind dynamic wind load on the principal building. These results show that the interference effects of three buildings are more signicant than two buildings and should be carefully considered. 3.2.3 Typical distributions of the interference factor Four contour plots in Figure 9 show the variation of the across-wind dynamic interference factor with the relative positions of one of the interfering buildings (hereafter referred to as model B), while the other interfering building (hereafter referred to as model A) is xed at (0, 24b), (31b, 32b), (51b, 08b) and (21b, 0), respectively.
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

y/b

y/b

1.4

-2

y/b

1. 4

0.4

4 1. 1.2

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ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

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45
0.

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C 0

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0.4

1.4

1.4
1.6

0.8 1.4 1.2 1

0.2
0.4

-1

0 .6

10

(e)

5 x/b

C 0

Figure 6. Interference effects of twin-building congurations at different reduced velocities in terrain category B: (a) Vr = 2; (b) Vr = 5; (c) Vr = 8; (d) Vr = 10; (e) Vr = 12

Table 2. Maximum across-wind dynamic interference factor of three side-by-side arranged buildings Terrain category Uniform ow B D Maximum IF 653 455 166 Critical reduced velocity 7 8 8

Figure 9(a) shows the distribution of the interference factor with model A xed at (0, 24b). It can be seen that the interference effects of the other upstream building are similar to those of the twinbuilding conguration shown in Figure 6(c). But, in general, interference effects of the three-building conguration are more signicant than those of the twin-building conguration. In particular, the interference factor of 435 recorded in side-by-side arrangement of three buildings is much greater than that of 253 recorded in twin building congurations shown in Figure 6(c). When model A is xed at (21b, 0), Figure 9(b) shows that the across-wind dynamic wind load of the well-shielded principal building can also be signicantly affected by another laterally located building. However, the interference effects in this case are smaller than the case shown in Figure 9(a). The interference shows shielding effects and the interference factor is less than 1 when the three buildings are arranged in tandem. Figure 9(c) presents another critical distribution in which interfering building A is xed at the other critical location (31b, 32b) listed in Table 3. The maximum IF of 373 is recorded when model B
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

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y/b

0. 4

0.8

1.4

2.2
0. 6

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0

Z. N. XIE AND M. GU

10

-1

Isolated building Interfering buildings at (0,3.2b), (0, -3.2b)

10

-2

f SMx(f)/q2 H

10

-3

10

-4

10

-5

10

-6

10

-3

10

-2

10 f D/VH

-1

10

Figure 7. Normalized across overturning moment spectra of the principal building with and without the presence of the two interfering buildings at (0, 32b), (0, 32b)

5 4 3

IF
2 1 0 2 4 6 Vr
Figure 8. Across-wind dynamic interference factor with the two interfering buildings situated at (0, 32b), (0, 32b)

10

12

is located at (51b, 08b). Fixing the interfering building A at (51b, 08b), we get another critical distribution as shown in Figure 9(d). The fourth and fth critical locations listed in Table 3 are in staggered arrangements. The variations of the spectra of the principal building with and without the presence of the interfering buildings in the staggered arrangement are similar to those for the side-by-side arrangement in Figure 7. The corresponding variation of the interference factor with the reduced velocity for the interfering buildings
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

47

located at the fourth critical positions of (31b, 32b) and (51b, 08b) is shown in Figure 10, where a critical reduced velocity of 8 can be found. 3.2.4 Effects of upstream terrain and number of interfering buildings This section is devoted to the discussion of the effect of different terrain on the across-wind dynamic interference effects. Table 4 presents the measured maximum dynamic interference factors and the corresponding critical positions in different upstream terrain, where the gures in parentheses in the second column denote the maximum interference factors of the twin-building conguration. All interference factors of the two congurations decrease rapidly with the increase in turbulence of the incidence ow, but in terrain category D the maximum interference factor is still found to be up to 183 in the three-building conguration and 142 in the twin-building conguration, respectively. The most signicant interference effect is found in uniform ow in the three-building conguration, where the largest recorded interference factor is 2819, which is much greater than that of 124 in the twinbuilding conguration. The corresponding differences between the two congurations in terrain categories B and D are found to be 80% and 29%. The results suggest that two interfering buildings could produce more signicant interference effects on the principal building than a single one. 3.3 Effects of relative section size

3.3.1 Twin-building congurations When vortices that shed from the upstream buildings hit the side face of the downstream building, a pronounced across-wind response could be induced. In particular, if the shedding frequency coincides with the natural frequency in the across-wind direction of the principal building, resonance will occur. The dimensionless ratio of the vortex shedding frequency from the upstream building to the natural frequency of the downstream building with the same height is f St Vr = fs Br (6)

where f is the vortex shedding frequency, fs is the natural frequency of the principal building, St is the Strouhal number of the upstream building, Vr is the reduced velocity (Equation (4)), and Br is the ratio of the breadth of the across-section of the interfering buildings to the principal building. When the ratio of the two frequencies is equal to 1, i.e. when the vortex shedding frequency of the upstream structure coincides with the natural frequency of the principal downstream building, resonance occurs. The Strouhal number of the square-section buildings discussed above is about 01 in terrain category B and this leads to the critical reduced velocity for the downstream building as Vr = Br Sr = Br 0.1 = 10 Br (7)

According to Equation (7), with the interfering building having a breadth ratio of 05, 075 and 1, respectively, the critical reduced velocity of the principal building will be correspondingly 5, 75 (8 is selected approximately) and 10. The corresponding contributions of the interference factor for the three critical velocities are shown in Figure 11. Since the reduced velocity of 10 is the resonant velocity of the principal building in the isolated case, the interference effects of the two smaller breadth ratios of interfering buildings, as shown in Figure 11(a) and (b), are more pronounced than those of the equal-sized interfering building shown in Figure 11(c).
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

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Z. N. XIE AND M. GU
1.
2

1.2

2 2.4 1 .6

3 A 2

1.6

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5 x/b

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5 x/b

With regard to the critical location of (31b, 16b) and (41b, 16b) shown in Figure 11(a) and (b), Figure 12 shows the normalized across-wind overturning moment spectra of the principal building with and without the presence of the interfering building for the two cases. The dominant frequency in the incidence ow that sheds from the upstream building is registered in the across-wind overturning moment spectra as a peak shown in Figure 12. The gure shows that the dominant peaks of the two cases are approximately centred at the reduced frequencies of 02 and 0125, respectively. This leads to the principal building being probably excited at a resonant frequency and produces a higher interference factor at the corresponding reduced velocities of 5 and 8. For the interfering building with a Br of 05, a maximum interference factor of 709 is found at a reduced velocity of 6 in terrain category B when it is located at (31b, 0) and the signicant interferCopyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

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0.

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ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

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1. 8

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10

(d)

5 x/b

Figure 9. Typical distributions of across-wind dynamic interference factors in terrain category B (Vr = 8): (a) interfering building model A xed at (0, 24b); (b) interfering building model A xed at (21b, 0); (c) interfering building model A xed at (31b, 32b); (d) interfering building model A xed at (51b, 08b)

Table 3. Distribution of the critical locations for the three-building conguration (terrain category B, Vr = 8) Interference factor 455 435 373 339 311 Critical locations (0, 32b) (0, 32b) (0, 32b) (0, 24b) (0, 24b) (0, 24b) (31b, 32b) (51b, 08b) (21b, 32b) (41b, 08b) Arrangement Side-by-side Side-by-side Side-by-side Staggered Staggered

Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

y/b

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1.2

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Z. N. XIE AND M. GU

IF
2 1.5 1 0.5 2 4 6 Vr 8 10 12

Figure 10. IF of the principal building with the presence of the interfering buildings at (31b, 32b) and (51b, 08b)

Table 4. Maximum interference factor in different terrains Critical Terrain category Uniform ow B D
a

Maximum interference factor 2819(124) 455(253) 183(142)

a

Reduced velocity 8 8 8

Locations (41b, 32b) and (61b, 0) (0, 32b) and (0, 32b) (0, 32b) and (101b, 32b)

Maximum IF of twin-building conguration.

ence effect, with an IF of 25 recorded, still can be found in terrain category D. The distributions of the interference factor in the two types of terrain are shown in Figure 13. These observed results show similar trends to the results obtained by Taniike and Inaoka (1988), where a much higher interference factor of 20 in the across-wind direction was found when an interfering building with a smaller Br of 04 was located at (3b, 0) in a smoother terrain of open country. Figure 14 compares the normalized spectra of the across-wind overturning moment of the principal building with and without the presence of the interfering building at the critical location of (31b, 0) in terrain category B. It can be seen that the spectrum of the across-wind load of the principal building is completely changed by the interfering building, in which the dominated frequencies, due to vortices shedding from the upstream building, are registered clearly on the spectrum distribution. Since the principal building is submerged completely in the low speed wake of the upstream building, the registered peak of the reduced frequency is slightly smaller than that of the principal building located at the high-speed wake boundary of the upstream building. This leads to possible resonance occurring at a higher critical reduced velocity of 6, which is greater than the critical reduced velocity of 5 when the interfering buildings are staggered as shown in Figure 12(a).
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

1. 5 2

51
-3 -2.5
2

2.5
2

3.5

-1.5 -1

1.5

3.

2.5

2 .5 2

10

(a)
2 .6

5 x/b
2.4 2 .2 . 6 8 3

C 0

2.6

3.

2
3.8
3 .6

1 .4

2.8

1.8

1.2

-3 -2.5 -2 -1.5 -1
1.6

3.6

1.2

3.2

3.4

1.6

3.

3.

2.8

2.

0 0 4 0 ..6 . 2
1
0. 8

10

(b)
2
1. 8
1.6

5 x/b
2.

C 0

1.6

2
1.8

0. 2 1. 1

-3 -2.5 -2 -1.5

1.4

1.2

1.2

1.4

-1
0.2

0.6

0. 4

10

(c)

5 x/b

C 0

Figure 11. The critical IF distributions for different breadth ratio interfering buildings in terrain category B; (a) Br = 05, Vr = 5; (b) Br = 075, Vr = 8; (c) Br = 10, Vr = 10

3.3.2 Three-building congurations For three-building congurations, the statistical characteristics of the distributions of the across-wind interference factors at different reduced velocities are shown in Figure 15, where p represents the percentage of the positions of the corresponding interference factor over the whole test positions of the conguration. From those gures one can clearly nd the existence of the wake vortex-induced resonance. It can be seen that the relationship between the critical reduced velocity and Br is also the same as that predicted by Equation (7). In the listed gures for different reduced velocities, the reduced velocity of 3 corresponds to a non-resonance case, while the values of 5 and 8 are the critical reduced velocities of congurations of Br = 05 and 075, respectively. Since the two larger interfering buildings have higher critical reduced velocities, the interference effects of the interfering buildings with Br > 1 would be smaller than those of the smaller interfering buildings at the lower reduced velocities which are frequently encountered in the real building structures.
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

y/b

y/b

4.

0.8

3.4

y/b

4.5 .5 5 5

0.5

2 .5

-2

3
4
1. 5
0.5 1. 5

1 5 0 .

4.5

2
1.4

.5 2 2 11 .5 0.5
0

2 .2 2
4

3. 8

6 2. 2 . 83

2 1. 1 4

0. 6

0.

0.8

52
10
-1

Z. N. XIE AND M. GU

10

-2

f SMx(f)/q2 H

10

-3

10

-4

10

-5

Isolated building Interfering building at (3.1b, -1.6b)

10

-6

10

-3

10

-2

10 f D/V H

-1

10

(a)
10
0

10

-1

Isolated building Interfering building at (4.1b, -1.6b)

10

-2

f SMx(f)/q2 H

10

-3

10

-4

10

-5

10

-6

10

-3

10

-2

10 f D/V H

-1

10

(b)

Figure 12. Normalized across-wind overturning moment spectra of the principal building with and without the interfering building at the critical interfering location for twin building conguration in terrain category B: (a) interfering building of Br = 05 located at (31b, 16b); (b) interfering building of Br = 075 located at (41b, 16b)

The distributions of the interference factor for the conguration of Br = 1 at a critical reduced velocity of 10, as shown in Figure 15(d) and (h), are not as signicant as the critical distributions for the congurations of Br = 05 at Vr = 5 and Br = 075 at Vr = 8, as shown in Figure 15(b), (c), (f) and (g). However, the interference effects for the conguration of Br = 1 at the reduced velocity of 10 are still found to be more signicant than those of the other four types of conguration as shown in Figure 15(d) and (h). The distributions of the interference factors at higher reduced velocities are not given here since the higher reduced velocity rarely occurs in concrete buildings.
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

1

53
-3 -2.5
1

1
1.5

-2
2.5 3

-1.5
1

1.5

-1
1

3 4 .5

.5 45 . 5 56 5 6.

10

(a)
1.

5 x/b

C 0

-3
1

-2.5 -2
0.9 0.8

1.2

-1.5 -1

1 .3

1.1

1.1

2.4

0.6

1.4 6 1.

1 .8

10

(b)

5 x/b

C 0

Figure 13. The critical distributions of the across-wind dynamic interference factors of twin-building congurations of Br = 05 at a reduced velocity of 6: (a) terrain category B; (b) terrain category D

10

10

-1

Isolated building Interfering building at (3.1b,0)

10

-2

f SMx(f)/q2 H

10

-3

10

-4

10

-5

10

-6

10

-3

10

-2

10 f D/V H

-1

10

Figure 14. Normalized across-wind overturning moment spectra of the principal building with and without the interfering building of Br = 05 at (31b, 0) in terrain category B
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

y/b

y/b

1.5

1.1

1 1 .1

1.2

1.2

0. 7

2 2 2.

54
p/%

Z. N. XIE AND M. GU
p/%

30

Br=0.50 Br=0.75 Br=1.0 Br=1.5 Br=2.0

40 30 20

Br=0.50 Br=0.75 Br=1.0 Br=1.5 Br=2.0

20

10

10 0

0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 IF

IF

(a)
p/% 50 40 30 Br=0.50 Br=0.75 Br=1.0 Br=1.5 Br=2.0

(b)
p/% 40 30 20 Br=0.50 Br=0.75 Br=1.0 Br=1.5 Br=2.0

20 10 0 0 1 2 3 IF 10 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 IF

(c)

(d)

Variations of the maximum interference factors for different congurations of breadth ratios with reduced velocity are shown in Figure 16. The gure shows an obvious peak in each curve corresponding to the critical velocity, especially in the lower roughness terrain. However, only two cases with smaller breadth ratios of Br = 05 and 075 are related to the wake vortex-induced resonance. The critical locations for other three cases with larger breadths are in the side-by-side arrangement and are the same as that of the side-by-side arranged three-building conguration discussed in previous sections. Since higher turbulence depresses the generation of shedding vortices from the interfering buildings and the principal building, interference effects decrease rapidly in terrain category D. However, the distinctive interference factors of 267 for Br = 05, 227 for Br = 075 and 183 for Br = 10 are still recorded. 4. CONCLUSIONS

Systematic studies for the across-wind dynamic interference effects on three tall buildings are conducted on the basis of wind tunnel experiments in this study. The interference excitations can be from of one or two adjacent buildings under various conditions. Some of the main results are summarized as follows.
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

p/% 40 30 20 10 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 IF Br=0.50 Br=0.75 Br=1.0 Br=1.5 Br=2.0
p/% 40 30 20 10 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 IF Br=0.50 Br=0.75 Br=1.0 Br=1.5 Br=2.0

55

(e)
p /% 50 40 30 Br=0.50 Br=0.75 Br=1.0 Br=1.5 Br=2.0

(f)
p/% 40 30 20 Br=0.50 Br=0.75 Br=1.0 Br=1.5 Br=2.0

20 10 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 IF 10 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 IF

(g)

(h)

Figure 15. The distributions of the across-wind dynamic interference factors of the three-building conguration with different breadth ratios: (a) Vr = 3, terrain category B; (b) Vr = 5, terrain category B; (c) Vr = 8, terrain category B; (d) Vr = 10, terrain category B; (e) Vr = 3, terrain category D; (f) Vr = 5, terrain category D; (g) Vr = 8, terrain category D; (h) Vr = 10, terrain category D

A stronger across-wind dynamic response will occur when a tall building is located near the highspeed wake boundary of upstream buildings. The tandem or side-by-side arranged interfering buildings could produce signicant interference effects on the principal building. Two interfering buildings could produce more signicant across-wind interference effects than a single one does. For conguration with three equal-sized buildings, the tested maximum interference factor increases, respectively, 80% and 29% over those of the twin-building conguration in terrain categories B and D. Shedding vortices from upstream buildings, especially smaller buildings in some particular region, could produce resonance on the downstream building at a predictable lower critical reduced velocity. The breadth ratio of the interfering and the principal buildings could signicantly affect the interference factors due to vortex-induced resonance. Higher turbulence ow depresses the generation of shedding vortices from the interfering and the principal buildings and, as a result, interference effects decrease rapidly with increase in roughness of the upstream terrain. However, noticeable interference factors of 267 for Br = 05, 227 for Br = 075 and 183 for Br = 10 are still recorded in terrain category D. Owing to the complex nature of the problem, it is not easy to make some direct and general recommendations from the up-to-date results for three-building congurations. More comprehensive approaches and experiments are therefore needed for further studies.
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

56
6 5.5 5 4.5 4

Z. N. XIE AND M. GU

B r =0.5 B r =0.75 B r =1.0 B r =1.5 B r =2.0

IF Max

3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 2 4 6 8 10 12

(a)
2.8 2.6 2.4 2.2

Vr
B r =0.5 B r =0.75 B r =1.0 B r =1.5 B r =2.0

IF Max

2 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 2 4 6 8 10 12

(b)

Vr

Figure 16. Maximum across-wind dynamic interference factors of three-building congurations: (a) terrain category B; (b) terrain category D
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is jointly supported by the National Science Foundation (50478118, 50321003), the Foundation for University Key Teachers by the Ministry of Education, and the Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (010455). Their support is gratefully acknowledged.
REFERENCES

Bailey PA, Kwok KCS. 1985. Interference excitation of twin tall buildings. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 21:323338. GB50009-2001. 2002. Chinese Load Code for Design of Building Structures. Architectural Industry Press of China: Beijing.
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal

ACROSS-WIND DYNAMIC RESPONSE

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Kareem A. 1987. The effects of aerodynamic interference on the dynamic response of prismatic structures. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 25:365372. Khanduri AC, Stathopoulos T, Bdard C. 1998. Wind-induced interference effects on buildings: a review of the state-of-the-art. Engineering Structures 20(7): 617630. Kwok KCS. 1995. Aerodynamics of the tall buildings: a state of the art in wind engineering. In Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Wind Engineering, New Delhi, India; 180204. Obasaju ED. 1992. Measurement of forces and base overturning moments on the CAARC tall building model in a simulated atmospheric boundary layer. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 40:103126. Sakamoto H, Haniu H. 1988. Aerodynamic forces acting on two square prisms placed vertically in a turbulent boundary layer. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 31: 4166. Saunders JW and Melbourne WH. 1980. Buffeting effects of upstream buildings. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Wind Engineering, Fort Collins, CO. Pergamon Press: Oxford; 593 605. Taniike Y. 1992. Interference mechanism for enhanced wind forces on neighbouring tall buildings. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 41:10731083. Taniike Y, Inaoka H. 1988. Aeroelastic behaviour of a tall building in wakes. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 28(1): 317327. Tschanz T, Davenport AG. 1983. The base balance technique for the determination of dynamic wind loads. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics 13: 429439.

Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 18, 3757 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/tal