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Wind on Tall buildings
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 APPLICATION OF COMPUTATIONAL FLUID
DYNAMICS (CFD) IN PREDICTING THE WIND
LOADS ON TALL BUILDINGS

By
Damith Mohotti, Priyan Mendis and Tuan Ngo
Advanced Protective Technologies for Engineering Structures (APTES)
Department of Infrastructure Engineering
The University of Melbourne

1
ACMSM23 –Byron Bay 9-12 December 2014
Demand for Tall Buildings

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Demand for Tall Buildings

The Phoenix Towers in China

Height = 1 km (3300 ft)
Completion = 2018
Cost = GB£1.2 billion

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Demand for Tall Buildings

Kingdom Tower in Jeddah

Height = 1.007 km (3304 ft)
Completion = 2018
Cost = US$ 1.23 billion

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 Conventional Wind Design Tools
• Wind Design Standards Wind Tunnel Tests

• Wind Tunnel Experiments

Source: http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/kinnas/319lab/notes12/ce319f_intro12.pdf

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Challenges in Tall Building Designs
• Limitations in Wind Design Standards
Criteria AS/NZS GB50009:2012 EN1991-1-4:2005 AIJ2004 ASCE 7-10:2010
1170.2:2011
(Ministry of (European Committee for (Architectural (American Society
(Standards Australia Construction of the Standardization, 2010) Institute of Japan, of Civil Engineers,
Limited/Standards People's Republic of 2004) 2010)
New Zealand, 2011) China, 2012)

Height No provisions for No provisions for No provisions for h>200m No explicit limit specified
h>200m h>550m

Geometry No provisions for buildings with complicated shapes

Along Wind Analysis Geometrical and height restrictions in along wind load calculations
Cross Wind Analysis Geometrical and height restrictions in across wind load calculations No provision for
cross wind
calculations
Shielding effects Shielding factor is only based on approximation of terrain and surrounding environment
Acceleration Only applicable to Only applicable to No provision for cross wind Only applicable to No provision for
(comfort) rectangular building building with uniform acceleration rectangular building cross wind
shape and mass along acceleration
height

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Challenges in Tall Building Designs
• Limitations in Current Wind Design Standards

• Only measure values at limited locations

• Inaccuracy involved due to reduced scale set up

• Resource and time consuming

• Not feasible for conceptual design stage

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Alternative Approach
• Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
What is CFD? Why CFD?
• Applicable for almost all
Fluid
Dynamics
buildings
• Provides detailed information
Air as a
compressible fluid about wind velocities and
wind pressures
• Offers more flexibility in
Computational
conducting parametric study
Fluid
Dynamics
Computer
Mathematics
Science

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Model Development

• Boundary Layer Wind Profile

3D flow domain Outlet

Inlet

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Model Development

• Parametric Study on Mesh Sensitivity

2.65

2.60

2.55

2.50
Pressure (kPa)

2.45
60m
2.40
90m
2.35 120m
2.30 150m

2.25
180m

2.20

2.15
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
Mesh size (Elements in million)
Pressure on building at 1000 iterations

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Flow Behaviour

Source: http://levelton.com/beepmodule1/u5-airflow/u5-
graphics/bla3.gif

Source: Taranath, B. S. (2009).

Reinforced concrete design of
tall buildings (Vol. 1). Boca
Raton: CRC Press.

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Results Comparison

Rectangular windward Square windward Circle windward

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Pressure Contours

Rectangular leeward Square leeward Circle leeward

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Results Comparison

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Results Comparison
Comparison of pressure obtained from CFD simulations and AS 1170.2
Storey level Height from the AS 1170.2, Pressure, CFD Pressure, kPa
ground level ,m kPa
48 192m 3.24 -0.63
47 188m 3.23 0.92
40 160m 3.20 1.79
30 120m 3.13 1.89
20 80m 3.05 1.23

10 40m 3.20 1.18

1 4m 2.25 1.42

2.50
Building model for non-linear
lateral load analysis using ETABS 2.00
1.50
Comparison of CFD simulation results with AS1170.2 predictions

Presure, kPa
1.00
Period,S Frequency/ Base Base shear
sec moments kN 0.50
MN-m 0.00
AS1170.2 7.98 0.125 3025 28731 -0.50
-1.00
CFD 7.20 0.138 2442 23488 0 50 100 150 200
Height, m

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Application of CFD in a Real Building

Application of CFD in a Real Building

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Alternative Approach – Use of CFD

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Future of Computational Wind Analysis
Activity Threshold value

The perception threshold <0.05 m/s2

The limit of psychological and 0.4 m/s2

task performance

The limit of walking 0.5-0.7 m/s2

Maximum limit of building 0.80 m/s2

motion should not be allowed to
exceed

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Application of CFD in a Real Building

Virtual Wind tunnel

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Application of CFD in a Real Building

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Application of CFD in a Real Building

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Application of CFD in a Real Building

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View publication stats

Questions ?

Thank you…
Damith Mohotti ( PhD, MEng.)
Department of Infrastructure Engineering
The University of Melbourne

Email: pushpajm@unimelb.edu.au

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