INTERFERENCE EFFECTS ON RESPONSE OF TALL BUILDINGS UNDER WIND LOADS

Abstract

Design of high rise buildings for wind loads are dependent upon the data available in wind codes which is very limited as, considering every possible arrangement of surroundings of a building is a very difficult job. Wind loading standards and codes are developed from results of various wind tunnel tests of isolated buildings for different wind environments and terrain categories. However, when the interference effects from neighboring buildings are taken into consideration, the use of wind loading codes for the design of structures may not be accurate, thus necessitating the adoption of wind tunnel tests with accurate simulation of the neighboring buildings in the near vicinity of the building to be designed. Neighboring structures may either decrease or increase the wind-induced forces on a building, depending mainly on the geometry and position of these structures, their orientation with respect to the direction of flow and upstream terrain conditions. Interference effects from neighboring buildings on the wind-induced along-wind and cross-wind responses, as well as torsional response of tall buildings have been investigated by researchers. Few of these studies are presented in this thesis to have a better understanding of wind loading for a safe design. In this work, analytical study of ‘T’ and ‘Y’ plan shapes buildings have been carried out under various isolated and interference conditions to obtain the response of the structure due to acting wind loads using Staad pro software package. For ‘T’ plan shape building, 5 isolated conditions are considered at different wind angles and 3 interference conditions are considered at different spacings having similar shape building in near vicinity. For ‘Y’ plan shape building, side-by-side and tandem configuration have been considered for interference study. Response of the structure have been studied by observing the variation of internal stress resultants, namely, axial force, bending moment, twisting moment and displacement with the height.