Monitoring Wind Characteristics and Structural

Performance of a Supertall Building

during a Landfall Typhoon
Q. S. Li, M.ASCE 1; Xiao Li 2; and Yuncheng He 3
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Abstract: Wind characteristics in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) and structural performance under extreme wind conditions are of
major concern in the design of tall buildings in tropical cyclone-prone regions. On August 22, 2008, Typhoon Nuri (0812) made landfall over
Hong Kong and then passed over its city center. This paper presents the analyzed results of the observations collected at two offshore
meteorological stations and by a structural health monitoring system installed in a 420-m-high supertall building in downtown Hong Kong
during the entire passage of Typhoon Nuri. The wind characteristics over open (sea) and urban (city) terrains at different stages of the typhoon
are presented and discussed. Moreover, the wind-induced responses of the supertall building during the typhoon are investigated. The struc-
tural dynamics properties and serviceability of the supertall building during a landfall typhoon are evaluated. This study aims to investigate
the wind characteristics in the ABL during a landfall typhoon, and its impact on high-rise buildings in a metropolis so as to provide useful
information for the wind-resistant design of supertall buildings in tropical cyclone-prone regions. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X
.0001564. © 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Wind characteristics; Typhoon; Supertall building; Structural performance; Field monitoring; Wind effects.

Introduction updated knowledge to the wind-resistant practices such as the

Knowledge of landfall tropical cyclones (TCs), including typhoons
and hurricanes, is of great importance for the wind-resistant design
of civil structures in TC-prone regions. Although observations of
TCs have been conducted extensively in the last decades, especially
through the reconnaissance experiments over oceans, measure-
ments of wind characteristics during landfall TCs are still insuffi-
cient. In particular, there is a lack of such information over land
for the wind-resistant design of high-rise buildings (Holmes 2010).
As commented by Irwin (2009), most building codes are based on
records from a ground level (about 10 m) and use the model of wind
profile developed in the 1960s to extrapolate the wind loads at
upper height levels for the design of high-rise buildings, by assum-
ing that the boundary layer tops out between about 250 and 500 m
which depends on exposures. There have been arguments regard-
ing the validity of the model in the design of supertall buildings.
In consideration of the fast growth of high-rise buildings in coastal
areas where TCs may frequently attack, and the lagged develop-
ment of existing wind load codes, there is an urgent need to conduct
more observations of wind characteristics in the atmospheric boun-
dary layer (ABL) in coastal areas during landfall TCs to further
understanding the boundary layer wind structure and to apply the
1 tored by structural health monitoring (SHM) systems that consist
Professor, Dept. of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City Univ. of
Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong (corresponding author). E-mail:
bcqsli@cityu.edu.hk
2
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City
Univ. of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
3
Engineer, Dept. of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City Univ. of
Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Note. This manuscript was submitted on December 3, 2015; approved
on March 3, 2016; published online on June 1, 2016. Discussion period
open until November 1, 2016; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Structural En-
gineering, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9445.
design of supertall buildings and risk assessments.
Field measurement is regarded as the most reliable approach to
investigate the wind characteristics in the ABL and the wind effects
on structures. In the past three decades, numerous field measure-
ments of structural performance and wind loads of tall buildings
have been conducted (Jeary 1986; Ohkuma et al. 1991; Littler and
Ellis 1992; Tamura and Suganuma 1996; Campbell et al. 2007;
Pirnia et al. 2007). In particular, several full-scale measurement
studies on the wind effects on supertall buildings have been con-
ducted, including the programs on three Chicago supertall build-
ings by the University of Notre Dame and the University of
Western Ontario (Kijewski-Correa 2003) and on more than 10
supertall buildings in Hong Kong, mainland China, and Taiwan by
the City University of Hong Kong (Li et al. 1998, 2003, 2004b, a,
2005, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2014; He and Li 2014; Yi and Li 2015).
Nevertheless, the opportunities to conduct full-scale measurements
are still quite rare, especially for those measurements on supertall
buildings (those with a height over 300 m) under extreme wind
conditions such as tropical cyclones. Given the lack of information
on structural performance during windstorms, it is required to con-
duct more field measurements on supertall buildings during TCs so
as to further the understanding of the wind effects on high-rise
buildings.
The wind-induced responses of tall buildings are usually moni-
of devices for wind and structural-response measurements. Accel-
erometers have been widely adopted and regarded as an effective
tool to capture the resonant responses of structures. But this kind
of sensor may encounter difficulties in the process of reconstruct-
ing low-frequency displacement responses (Tamura et al. 2002;
Kijewski-Correa and Kochly 2007). Thus, in the past two decades,
mean and low-frequency displacements of civil structures were
usually measured by employing the global positioning system
(GPS) (Lovse et al. 1995; Ashkenazi and Roberts 1997; Brown et al.
1999; Fujino et al. 2000; Nakamura 2000; Wong et al. 2001;

© ASCE 04016097-1 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 04016097

 Tamura et al. 2002; Kijewski-Correa and Kochly 2007; Li and Wu
2007; Yi et al. 2013). The combination of these two kinds of meas-
urement devices, namely accelerometers and GPS, can provide
comprehensive information on structural responses including ac-
celeration and displacement.
Typhoons, standing for mature TCs, which develop in the
western part of the North Pacific Ocean, cause severe casualties,
financial losses and building damages almost every year. On
August 22, 2008, Typhoon Nuri (0812) made landfall over the
eastern part of Hong Kong and then directly passed over its city
center. This provided a precious opportunity to investigate the wind
characteristics in the ABL during a landfall typhoon and its impact
on high-rise buildings in a metropolis. This paper presents the an-
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alyzed results of the data recorded at three measurement sites in
Hong Kong during the entire passage of Typhoon Nuri: two off-
shore meteorological stations and a 420-m-high supertall building
located in the city center. Both the meteorological stations are
equipped with ground-based anemometers, while one station is also
equipped with a Doppler radar profiler. A SHM system including
measurement devices for wind velocities and structural responses
was installed in the supertall building. In the first part of this paper,
the wind characteristics of Nuri over offshore sites and a typical
city terrain are investigated. Then, the structural responses of the
supertall building during Nuri are analyzed, and the serviceability
of the high-rise structure under typhoon conditions is evaluated
based on the measurements by the SHM system. Since Typhoon
Nuri passed over the city center of Hong Kong directly, compre-
hensive information on the wind characteristics in the ABL and the
wind effects on the supertall building at different storm stages is
presented and discussed. The observed data and analyzed results
presented in this paper are expected to provide useful information
for the wind-resistant designs of supertall buildings in TC-prone
regions.
Instrumental and Meteorological Information
Offshore Meteorological Stations
This paper adopts the observations collected at two offshore
meteorological stations in Hong Kong during Typhoon Nuri.
Fig. 1. (a) Topographic map and (b) aerial photo of Hong Kong (image courtesy of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,
http://DATA.GOV.HK)
© ASCE
J. Struct. Eng., 04016097
One is located at the zenith [71.9 m above mean sea level (AMSL)]
of Cheung Chau Island (22°12’04′′ N; 114°1’36′′ E) as indicated in
Fig. 1(a). This station, abbreviated as the CCH station hereafter, is
equipped with both ground-based devices for surface weather mea-
surements (i.e., air pressure, temperature, and wind) and a remote-
sensing facility. The surface wind records were collected by a cup
anemometer installed at a height of 26.7 m above ground level
(AGL) or 98.6 m AMSL. It provides minute-to-minute updated
horizontal wind component records that consist of 1-min scalar
mean wind speed and direction and 3-s peak gust, based on instan-
taneous readings sampled at 1 Hz. Profile records were collected
by a boundary layer type Doppler radar profiler system, which is
installed 71.9 m AMSL, with a central operating frequency of
1,299 MHz. The profiler system works in both low and high modes
simultaneously. The low mode range is set as 213–1,656 m with
a height resolution of 60 m; while the high mode range is set as
459–5,371 m with a resolution of 204.5 m. Both the modes can
provide 25 gate records which are updated every 2 min. Due to
adopting the overlapping average technique, all the gate records
stand for 10-min mean values. The accuracy of the profiler system
is within 1 m=s and 10°. The observed data collected by the profiler
were adopted for analyzing the vertical wind structure of Typhoon
Nuri. The other meteorological station is situated on the top (55.8 m
AMSL) of Waglan Island (22°10’56′′N; 114°18’12′′ E) which is a
small island with an area less than 0.1 km2 . This station, which is
called WGL station hereafter, is about 5 km off the southeast coast
of Hong Kong and approximately 29 km east of the CCH station.
Horizontal surface wind components are measured by a cup
anemometer installed at height 26.9 AGL or 82.7 m AMSL at
the WGL station.
SHM System Installed in a Supertall Building
For the purpose of investigating the typhoon-generated wind char-
acteristics over city terrain and the impact of a landfall typhoon
on high-rise buildings in a metropolis such as Hong Kong, this
paper analyzes and discusses the data recorded from a SHM sys-
tem installed in a 420-m-high supertall building (22°17′7′′ N;
114°9′33′′ E) in Hong Kong during the passage of Typhoon Nuri.
As shown in Fig. 1(a), the supertall building is approximately
17 km northeast of the CCH station, and approximately 19 km
04016097-2 J. Struct. Eng.
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Fig. 2. Some sensors of the SHM system installed in a supertall building (images by authors): (a) propeller anemometer; (b) GPS antenna; (c) control
system; (d) locations of the accelerometers and orthogonal directions X and Y; (e) locations of the instrumented supertall building and the center of
Typhoon Nuri around 5:40 p.m. on August 22, 2008
northwest of the WGL station. Fig. 1(b) shows an aerial image
of the area marked by a rectangle in Fig. 1(a). As indicated in
Fig. 1(b), the site of this supertall building is at the seashore in
Hong Kong Island while Victoria Harbor is located in the north of
the building. A number of tall buildings with heights over 150 m
are located adjacently to the building in a sector spanning clock-
wise from east to west. The building section is convex-square
shaped and the building width tapers from 57 to 39 m along its
height. A reinforced concrete central core is linked by steel beams
and outriggers to eight exterior composite megacolumns. The mea-
suring devices of the SHM system that provided data for this study
are as follows. A Young 05103 propeller anemometer (R. M.
Young Company, Traverse City, Michigan) [Fig. 2(a)] installed
approximately 14 m above the building’s roof at 420.55 m above
Hong Kong Principle Datum (420.55 mPD), or 419.32 AMSL.
A high-precision Leica GMX902 GG GPS receiver and an Smart-
Track AX1202 GPS antenna (Leica Geosystems, Norcross,
Georgia) [Fig. 2(b)] mounted on the building’s roof at height of
414.55 mPD. The GPS utilizes a continuously operating reference
station located on an island in Victoria Harbor with about 4 km
away from the building site. The reference station established by
Survey and Mapping Office of Hong Kong Lands Department con-
tains a high-precision Leica System GRX1200 Pro receiver (Leica
Geosystems, Norcross, Georgia) with Leica AT504 choke-ring
antenna installed on a low-rise building’s roof. Signals collected by
the anemometer and the accelerometers were sampled at 20 Hz
while those recorded by the GPS were sampled at 10 Hz, and all
these signals were continuously and simultaneously recorded by a
data acquisition unit (DAU) during the passage of Typhoon Nuri.
Fig. 2(c) shows a photo of the control system of the SHM system.
Two orthogonally [in X and Y directions as shown in Fig. 2(d),
respectively] mounted accelerometers placed at the top floor center
of the building (at height of 400.10 mPD). Wind direction of 0°
measured by the anemometer represents the north, while there is
an angle difference of 32° between direction X and the north as
shown in Fig. 2(d). Fig. 2(e) shows the supertall building.
© ASCE
J. Struct. Eng., 04016097
Typhoon Nuri
Nuri developed as a tropical depression in the east of Philippines
on August 17, 2008, and edged towards northwest afterwards.
Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) issued the Strong Wind Signal
No. 3 at 8:40 a.m. HKT (Hong Kong Time) on August 21 when
Nuri was about 310 km southeast of Hong Kong. On the following
day, August 22, the No.8 Northwest Gale or Storm Signal was is-
sued at 07:40 a.m., and then replaced by Increasing Gale or Storm
Signal No. 9 at 1:40 p.m. As shown in Fig. 1(a), Nuri made landfall
over the eastern part of Hong Kong at around 4:50 p.m., and then
reorganized itself by forming a new center at Point B while the
original center dissipated rapidly at Point A. The center of Nuri
continued to move west-northwestwards and passed over the city
center of Hong Kong with its track shown in Fig. 1(b). At approx-
imately 5:40 p.m., the distance between the site of the supertall
building equipped with the SHM system and the center of Nuri
was less than 2 km [Fig. 2(e)], suggesting that the supertall building
was entirely submerged in the typhoon eye region. In order to pro-
vide comprehensive information on the typhoon-generated charac-
teristics during the entire passage of Nuri over Hong Kong, this
paper adopts the data collected from the CCH station, the WGL
station, and the SHM system installed in the supertall building dur-
ing a 36-h-long time period ranging from 12:00 a.m. on August 22
to 12:00 p.m. on August 23. Then, the wind characteristics of Nuri
at the two offshore locations and at the city center are analyzed and
discussed. Furthermore, taking the supertall building under moni-
toring as an example to explore the impact of a landfall typhoon on
high-rise buildings in a typical metropolis, structural performance
of the supertall building during the passage of Typhoon Nuri are
detailed evaluated and discussed.
Wind Characteristics
The wind characteristics during Nuri are analyzed utilizing the data
measured at the two offshore meteorological stations, namely the
04016097-3 J. Struct. Eng.
 CCH station and the WGL station, and from the instrumented Table 1. Five Stages of Typhoon Nuri’s Passage
supertall building in the city center of Hong Kong. In this section, Corresponding
wind profiles are presented based on the measurements by a Time period typhoon region Stage
boundary-layer type Doppler radar profiler system installed at
5:00–8:00 a.m., August 22 Outskirt OS1
the CCH station during the passage of Nuri. Meanwhile, analysis 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m., August 22 Eyewall EW1
of wind data collected by the anemometers at the three measure- 5:30–7:00 p.m., August 22 Eye Eye
ment sites is carried out. The objective of this section is to inves- 10:00 p.m., August 22–1:00 a.m., Eyewall EW2
tigate the wind characteristics of the landfall typhoon (Nuri) around August 23
a metropolis (Hong Kong). Such information will be useful for 3:00–6:00 a.m., August 23 Outskirt OS2
understanding the structural performance of the supertall building
during the typhoon.

outskirt region (Stage OS2). Fig. 4 shows the profiles OS1, EW1,
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Wind Profiles
Integrated wind profiles covering the entire TC boundary layer
(TBL) at the CCH station are obtained by synchronizing the data
from the two (low and high) modes of the Doppler radar profiler
system with those from the anemometer installed near the ground.
These integrated profiles are then averaged over each 30-min-long
segment starting from 12:00 a.m. on August 22 without overlap-
ping. Fig. 3 illustrates the vertical profiles of 30-min mean horizon-
tal wind speed (U) by filled color contours, which are overlaid by
[Ux , Uy ] wind vectors indicated by black arrows (downward for
north wind, leftward for east wind). The corresponding time history
of air pressure, depicted by a dotted line in the upper part of Fig. 3,
indicates the variation of storm-relative position during the passage
of Nuri.
Fig. 3 reveals some typical features of a TC. The TC eye located
at central area around 18:00/22 was characterized by calm wind
indicated by the dark thick line; while the eyewalls surrounding
the TC eye, centered at 12:00 and 10:00 p.m. on August 22, respec-
tively, contained maximum winds colored by the light dashed
line. Mean wind directions varied significantly from 0 to 200° after
the passage of the TC eye. Within the regions of the two eye-
walls, the radius of maximum wind (RMW) is found to tilt outward
with height, which is similar to those observed over deep oceans
(Hawkins and Imbembo 1976; Giammanco et al. 2013).
To further explore the mean wind profiles at varied stages during
the passage of Nuri, five stages listed in Table 1 were extracted
from the entire observation period: the first outskirt region (Stage
OS1), the first eyewall region (Stage EW1), typhoon eye region
(Stage Eye), the second eyewall region (Stage EW2) and the second
Eye, EW2, and OS2, while the profiles of mean wind direction
at these five stages are also presented in the figure. In Fig. 4(a),
a more-distinct jet-like structure can be observed at Stages EW1,
EW2, and OS2. The maximum wind, which may be regarded as the
gradient speed (Powell et al. 2003), occurred at a height of 1,000–
2,000 m, which varied among the different stages. Stages EW2 and
OS2 basically correspond to an open sea exposure, and the jets are
around 1,000 m (EW2) and 1,500 m (OS2). These results reflected
that more inner TC parts corresponded to lower jets, which are con-
sistent with the observations over the ocean (Franklin et al. 2003;
Vickery et al. 2009). As indicated in Figs. 3 and 4(b), Stages OS1
and EW1 corresponded to a hilly upwind terrain in the north of the
CCH station (Fig. 1), while Stages EW2 and OS2 corresponded to
an open sea terrain in the south of the station. It is believed that
because of these topographic effects, the jet in the mean wind speed
profile at Stage EW1 intended to be uplifted (centered 1,500 m)
compared to that at Stage EW2. Moreover, the topographic effects
were also reflected in the profiles of mean wind direction at these
typhoon stages. In Fig. 4(b), the wind directions with height below
2 km at Stages OS1 and EW1 increased around 30 and 50°, while
those at Stages EW2 and OS2 rarely varied.
To quantitatively depict the obtained mean wind speed profiles,
four frequently utilized models of wind speed profiles are em-
ployed to fit the results, including the log-law, power-law, Deaves
and Harris model (Cook 1997; hereafter referring to as DH model),
and the model presented by Vickery et al. (2009); hereafter referred
to as the VWPC09 model
UðzÞ ¼ U ref ðz=zref Þα ð1aÞ

Uðzd Þ ¼ ðu =κÞ lnðzd =z0 Þ ð1bÞ

       
u z 23 zd 15 zd 2
Uðzd Þ ¼ ln d þ −
κ z0 4 h 8 h
 3  4 
4 zd 1 zd
− þ ð1cÞ
3 h 4 h

   n 
zd z
Uðzd Þ ¼ ðu =κÞ ln − a d ð1dÞ
z0 H

where z = height above terrain; zd ¼ z − d = height above zero-

displacement plane d; U ref = reference mean speed at a reference
height zref ; u = friction velocity; κ ≈ 0.40 = von Karman constant;
h = boundary layer depth, which is regarded as the height associ-
ated with the maximum wind speed in this study; H = parameter
indicating the TBL depth; a and n = two coefficients, which, fol-
lowing Vickery et al. (2009), are set as a ¼ 0.4 and n ¼ 2.
Before the fitting operation to the wind data, the surface wind
Fig. 3. Variations of 30-min mean wind profiles in form of filled color
measurements by the anemometer are corrected to their potential
contour (dotted lines stand for variations in air pressure)
values, which correspond to mean wind speeds at a 10 m height

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Fig. 4. Mean wind profiles at five different stages (OS1, EW1, Eye, EW2, and OS2) during Nuri’s landfall at CCH station: (a) mean wind speed;
(b) mean wind direction
above open terrain (z0 ¼ 0.03 m) by using the standardization
method proposed by He et al. (2014) to eliminate the topographic
effects. The fitting analysis of the measurements is then conducted
based on the records either in the lowest 1,000 m (for the log-law
and the power-law) or in the lowest 3,000 m (for DH and VWPC09
models). The fitting results are indicated in Fig. 5 and Table 2.
Mean Horizontal Wind
Fig. 6 plots the variations of the 10-min mean wind speed and di-
rections at the CCH station, the WGL station and atop the supertall
building (denoted by Building in the figure). The AMSL heights of
each measurement points are also indicated in Fig. 6, while there
are four measurement points with different heights above the CCH
station (i.e., 26.7 m at the anemometer height, and 213, 333, and
454 m gate heights from the Doppler radar profiler). Due to the
differences of the storm-relative locations among the CCH station,
WGL station, and supertall building, the measurements at these
three sites showed noticeable phase differences around the typhoon
eye region. The minimum mean wind speeds and the dramatic
shifts of mean wind directions reflected the arrivals of the typhoon
eye at the three measurement sites, and these records matched the
timeline provided by HKO and plotted in Fig. 1(a). In Fig. 6(a),
a typical M-shaped distribution of the mean wind speed, which ex-
hibits the classical double peak of an eyewall passage over a meas-
urement site, can be observed with ease for all the cases, indicating
that the three sites had experienced the five stages shown in Table 1.
By comparing the measurements collected at the two offshore
stations, apparently the wind strength measured above the CCH
station was much lower than that measured at the WGL station,
although the gate records from the CCH station were measured at
much greater heights than that at the WGL station, suggesting that
the typhoon was rapidly weakened after it made landfall. On the
other hand, the mean wind strength atop the supertall building in
the city center was significantly lower compared to that above the
CCH station at a similar height (i.e., 454 m gate records), or even
to that at the WGL station at a height of only 87 m. The dramatic
decline of the measured wind strength reflected the severe shield-
ing effects caused by the local topography/terrain and surround-
ing buildings around the supertall building. The lowest mean
wind speed measured atop the building was merely above zero,
© ASCE 04016097-5
J. Struct. Eng., 04016097
indicating that, as mentioned previously in section “Typhoon Nuri,”
the supertall building was entirely submerged in the TC eye region
and extremely adjacent to the center of Nuri during that period of
time. In Fig. 6(b), the 10-min mean wind direction measured atop
the supertall building varied approximately 180°, and this shift in
wind direction occurred more rapidly than those measured at the
two offshore meteorological stations. This again implied that the
supertall building was much closer to the track of Nuri’s center than
the two meteorological stations.
Fluctuating Horizontal Wind
Based on the measurements by the anemometer atop the supertall
building, the turbulence integral length scales in longitudinal and
lateral directions are analyzed for the investigation of turbulence
characteristics of wind during the passage of Nuri. Using the von
Karman spectra to fit the measured power spectral densities of
fluctuating wind speeds, the turbulence integral length scales are
determined by regarding them as the fitting parameters. Fig. 7 plots
the power spectral densities (PSDs) of the measured wind velocities
in longitudinal and lateral directions and compares them with the
von Karman spectra expressed by
nSε ðnÞ 4ðLUε nÞ
¼ ; ε¼4
σ2ε ½1 þ 70.8ðLUε nÞ2 5=6
nSε ðnÞ 4ð Uε Þ½1 þ 755.2ð Uε Þ2 
Ln Ln
¼ ; ε¼v ð2Þ
σ2ε ½1 þ 283.2ðLUε nÞ2 11=6
where n = frequency; Lε ðε ¼ u; vÞ = estimated turbulence integral
length scale; and Sε ðnÞjε¼u;v = power spectral density of the fluc-
tuating wind components in the longitudinal and lateral direction,
respectively. Fig. 8 plots the turbulence integral length scales in
longitudinal and lateral directions, denoted by Lu and Lv , respec-
tively, against 10-min mean wind speeds. Clearly, the turbulence
integral length scales in both the longitudinal and lateral directions
scattered significantly as the wind speed increased. An increasing
trend of the longitudinal turbulence integral length scale with mean
wind speed can be observed with ease. However, there is no clear
relationship between the lateral turbulence integral length scale and
the wind speed.
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Fig. 5. Mean wind profiles fitted by different models at three typhoon stages (Log: logarithmic law; Power: power law; DH: Deaves and Harris model;
VWPC09: model proposed by Vickery et al. 2009)

Table 2. Fitting Results of Mean Speed Profiles at Three Stages during Nuri’s Passage via Four Models
Model
Power-law Log-law DH VPWC09
Parameter
Stage (m=s) α m=s (m) (m) m=s (m) (m) (m) (m) a n
EW1 13.8 0.18 1.57 0.38 0.19 0.96 0.026 0 1600 1629 0.4 2
EW2 — — 1.87 0.54 4.5 — — — — 965 0.4 2
OS2 9.28 0.21 1.36 0.85 0.45 0.84 0.79 1.86 1600 1641 0.4 2
Note: For VPWC09 model, parameter values obtained in the Log-law model case are adopted; a and n are set as 0.4 and 2; for the EW2 case, the power-law
and DH model fail to provide acceptable fitting results.

Turbulence intensity, I, and gust factor, GF, are two important Gust factor is often defined as the ratio of the peak gust speed
parameters in determination of fluctuating wind actions and wind- over a shorter duration τ to the mean wind speed U in a relatively
induced dynamic responses of tall buildings. The turbulence inten- longer duration T
sities in the longitudinal and lateral directions can be determined by
the following equation: ûi ðτ Þ
GFi ðτ ; TÞ ¼ ; i ¼ u; v ð4Þ
σ UðTÞ
Ii ¼ i ; i ¼ u; v ð3Þ
U
where τ and T ¼ 3 s and 10 min, respectively, in the following
where σi = root-mean square (RMS) value of the fluctuating com- discussions. The variation of the gust factor with 10-min mean
ponent in direction i. wind speed and that with turbulence intensities are illustrated in

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J. Struct. Eng., 04016097

 Figs. 9(a and b), respectively. In Fig. 9(a), it is observed that at a
certain mean wind speed, the gust factor of longitudinal wind was
generally greater than that of lateral wind. And with an increasing
10-min mean wind speed, the gust factors for both the longitudinal
and lateral directions gradually decreased and tended to be con-
stant. The relationships between the turbulence intensities and
the gust factors, as indicated in Fig. 9(b), can be described by a
regression equation with two coefficients (c1 and c2 ) as
GFi ¼ c1 I ci 2 ð5Þ
Ddue to the existence of multiscale wind flows (Wurman and
Winslow 1998; Kosiba et al. 2013) and the variation of strength
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and storm-relative position of TCs, measured wind characteristics
during TCs may demonstrate typical nonstationary features (Xu
and Chen 2004; Wang and Kareem 2005; Kareem 2008; Song et al.
2012; Kareem and Wu 2013). But, Typhoon Nuri, as a mesoscale
vortex, was still dominated by its primary structure. Hence, for
Nuri, the typhoon winds analyzed within each relatively short time
Fig. 6. Mean horizontal wind speed and direction measured atop the
supertall building and above the CCH station
Fig. 7. Power spectral density (PSD) of longitudinal and lateral wind speed components
© ASCE 04016097-7
J. Struct. Eng., 04016097
segment (e.g., 10 min) can be basically regarded as a stationary
process.
Structural Responses
Since the supertall building equipped with the SHM system is the
second tallest building in Hong Kong, it may experience severe
wind-induced structural responses during typhoons. It is therefore
meaningful to monitor the building’s structural performance during
Typhoon Nuri to investigate the impact of a landfall typhoon on
high-rise buildings in a metropolis. In this section, the acceleration
and displacement responses of the supertall building during the
passage of Nuri are analyzed and discussed; the building’s modal
properties, including natural frequencies and damping ratios, are
identified; the serviceability of the high-rise structure is evaluated
based on the data collected from the supertall building and the
WGL station.
Acceleration Responses
Fig. 10 shows the acceleration time histories of the supertall build-
ing recorded by two orthogonally placed accelerometers. The first
significant enlargement of the acceleration responses in X and Y
directions, denoted by Ax and Ay respectively, occurred at Stage
EW1 with peaks at approximately 2.5 cm=s2. After a period of
Fig. 8. Variations of the turbulence integral length scales with 10-min
mean wind speed
J. Struct. Eng.
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by University College London on 08/16/16. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Fig. 9. Variations of gust factors with (a) 10-min mean wind speed and (b) turbulence intensities
calm responses at Stage Eye, the acceleration responses in both
directions enlarged again at Stage EW2, reaching 5.0 and
3.7 cm=s2 in X and Y directions, respectively. Furthermore, 10-min
mean and RMS values of wind speed are also plotted in Fig. 10,
allowing the dependence of acceleration responses upon wind
strength and fluctuation to be observed with ease.
The 10-min RMS of the acceleration responses Ax and Ay,
denoted by σAx and σAy respectively, are plotted in Fig. 11, and
their peaks are observed at Stage EW1 and EW2 as expected.
Fig. 12 compares these RMS acceleration responses with 10-min
mean wind speed and with RMS values of wind speed, along with
regression curves expressed in power laws as follows:
σ a ¼ c 1 U c2
σa ¼ c3 σcU4
where σa = RMS, or standard deviation, of the acceleration re-
sponse; U and σU = mean and RMS of 10-min wind speed atop
the supertall building, respectively; c1 , c2 , c3 and c4 = coefficients
describing the sensibilities of these relationships.
Fig. 10. Time histories of acceleration responses in X and Y
directions, with indications of 10-min mean and RMS values of
wind speed
© ASCE
J. Struct. Eng., 04016097
Displacement Responses
Apart from the acceleration responses of the supertall building,
the building’s displacement responses, whose time histories are
illustrated in Fig. 13, were obtained by the GPS and adopted in
this paper to comprehensively investigate the structural perfor-
mance during the typhoon. A 2-h-long time segment starting at
9:00 a.m. on August 22, which corresponded to the commencement
of Stage EW1, was selected for the discussions of the building’s
displacement responses. Given that the supertall building is located
in a complex urban terrain and unfavorable weather conditions
during the typhoon would inevitably lower the quality of the GPS
signals, the displacement data required validation to ensure the ac-
curacy of the outputs from the GPS. The performance of the GPS
ð6Þ
installed in this building has been discussed in detail by Yi et al.
(2013). In this paper, the displacement data recorded by the GPS
were bandpass filtered about the first mode and then double differ-
ð7Þ enced to derive GPS estimate of accelerations. Then, these results
are further compared to similar bandpass filtered accelerations mea-
sured by the accelerometers. It can be observed with ease that in
Fig. 14, the time histories of the acceleration data derived from the
displacement responses of the GPS show a good agreement with
those measured by the accelerometers. Fig. 15 demonstrates the
extent of correlation between the accelerations obtained by the
Fig. 11. Time histories of 10-min RMS acceleration responses
04016097-8 J. Struct. Eng.
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Fig. 12. Variation of RMS acceleration responses with 10-min mean and RMS wind speeds

accelerometers and the GPS, with the indications of regression
coefficients (slope and intercept) as well as correlation coefficients.
Structural dynamic responses of a building can be divided into
resonant component and quasi-static background component. From
the viewpoint of structural designs, the resonant component is of
primary concern for evaluations of human comfort at upper floors
of tall buildings. Previous field measurement studies without em-
ployment of GPS mostly focused on the discussions of the resonant
component, which is essentially the only component that can be
measured by accelerometers. However, it was reported that the
background contributions are noteworthy for the design of tall
buildings (Yi et al. 2013). Therefore, the estimation of the back-
ground component, which can be acquired by GPS, is a necessity
in the investigations of wind-induced responses of tall buildings
during severe windstorms such as typhoons. According to Yi et al.
(2013), the raw data of displacement responses from the GPS
installed in the supertall building were high-pass filtered with a
cut-off frequency of 0.02 Hz to eliminate multipath effects along
with other residual effects bedded at the frequency of 0 Hz. These
filtered displacement data were then spectrally analyzed, and the
PSDs within the bandwidth associated with the resonant peak,
which corresponded to the resonant component of the building dis-
placement, were extracted using a narrow bandpass filter, while the
remaining PSDs were regarded as the background component. The
entire GPS measurement was divided into 10-min-long segments
for the calculation of RMS resonant responses and RMS back-
ground responses of each segment. Fig. 16(a) presents the original
RMS resonant responses and RMS background responses of each

Fig. 13. Time histories of displacement responses in X and Y Fig. 14. Time histories of acceleration responses measured by accel-
directions erometers and derived from displacement responses by GPS

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Fig. 15. Correlation between the acceleration responses measured by accelerometers and derived from the displacement responses by GPS

segment against 10-min mean wind speed, indicating that both
the resonant responses and the background responses increased
exponentially with the wind speed. Fig. 16(b) presents the averaged
proportion of total responses, namely the averaged individual con-
tributions by the RMS resonant responses and the RMS back-
ground responses, against 10-min mean wind speed. It can be
intuitively recognized that the resonant responses rapidly increased
after the wind reached a high speed, say 10 m=s, while the back-
ground responses increased with a much lower rate. Fig. 16(b) also
indicates that the averaged background responses contributed ap-
proximately 1=3 and 1=5 of the total responses in direction X
and Y, respectively, when the mean wind speed reached 20 m=s.
Therefore, although the dynamic responses of the supertall building
were dominated by the resonant responses at high wind speeds, the
contributions by the background responses should not be neglected
since these background responses occupied certain proportions of
the total responses.
Modal Identification
Natural Frequencies
The peak-picking (PP) method and the random decrement tech-
nique (RDT) are used herein to identify the modal parameters of

Fig. 16. Relative contributions of resonant and background RMS displacement responses during the passage of Nuri: (a) original; (b) averaged

© ASCE 04016097-10 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 04016097

 the supertall building. Two spectral estimation methods are adopted
to identify the natural frequencies of the building: the Welch
method and the Yule-Walker auto-regressive (YW-AR) model
method. The Welch method is based on the fast Fourier transform
(FFT) and incorporates both windowing and averaging techniques
into the estimation process. While the YW-AR method is a para-
metric model method that is able to estimate the frequency content
of a finite-length signal by treating it as an infinite-length one, and
thus this method avoids the leakage problem that several FFT-based
methods may encounter. The block length for the FFT analysis
involved in the Welch method was set as 214 ¼ 16,384 to provide
a frequency resolution no larger than 0.002 Hz (actually
0.00122 Hz), and the order number for the Yule-Walker approach
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Fig. 17. Variation of fundamental frequencies in X and Y directions
with vibration amplitudes
Fig. 18. Power spectral density (PSD) of accelerations by accelerometers and by GPS in X and Y directions
© ASCE 04016097-11
J. Struct. Eng., 04016097
was set as 1,000. As for the RDT adopted in this study, the time
length of each random decrement signature (RDS) was set as ap-
proximately 15 times of the natural period of the building’s first
mode, and the minimum segment number involved in each RDS
was set as 1,000. Detailed discussions on the application of the
RDT are presented in He and Li (2014). Based on the accelerations
measured by the accelerometers, the amplitude-dependences of
fundamental frequencies identified using the RDT in both X and
Y directions are shown in Fig. 17, in which the plotted points
correspond to the RDSs with different initial amplitudes, respec-
tively, indicating that the building’s fundamental frequencies low-
ered approximately 0.003 Hz as the amplitude increased from 0
to 2 cm=s2 .
Extracting the data collected during the aforementioned time
segment (9:00 through 11:00 a.m. on August 22), Fig. 18 com-
pares the building’s fundamental frequencies identified by the
outputs from the accelerometers and the GPS, and good agree-
ments are found in both X and Y directions. Fig. 19 compares
the fundamental frequencies determined by the two sets of the
measurements against the vibration amplitudes of the building,
and the results show that the building had lower natural frequen-
cies when it experienced the typhoon stages with higher wind
speeds, which are consistent with the results plotted in Fig. 17.
Table 3 summarizes the building’s natural frequencies at Stages
OS1, EW1, and EW2. Obviously, the fundamental frequencies
identified by the GPS show a good consistency with those iden-
tified by the accelerometers.
Damping Estimation
Damping ratio describes the efficiency of a structure to dissipate the
vibration energy transferred by dynamic loads such as typhoons
and earthquakes. As modern tall buildings are getting taller and
more flexible, reliable information on the damping ratios measured
from prototype supertall buildings are of great value since similar
measurements are still very limited in the literature. In this study,
the damping ratios of the supertall building are estimated by the
J. Struct. Eng.
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Fig. 19. Comparison of amplitude-dependent fundamental frequencies identified by the outputs of accelerometers and GPS

Table 3. Building’s Natural Frequencies at Different Stages of Nuri’s

Passage
Building vibration mode
First mode Second mode
Typhoon stage
Identification
method Direction OS1 EW1 EW2 OS1 EW1 EW2
Accelerometer X 0.140 0.138 0.138 0.527 0.516 0.515
Y 0.146 0.145 0.145 0.563 0.559 0.557
GPS X 0.143 0.139 0.137 — — —
Y 0.147 0.146 0.145 — — —

RDT (Cole 1973). Before estimation of the damping ratios by the

RDT, a bandpass filter was adopted to eliminate unwanted compo-
nents. The damping ratios presented in this paper are actually the
combination of aerodynamic damping and structural damping.
Fig. 20 plots an example of random decrement signature with initial
amplitude of 0.85 cm=s2 .
Fig. 21 plots the variations of damping ratios with the build-
ing’s vibration amplitude for the two fundamental sway modes
in X and Y directions. The damping ratio in the X direction in-
creases rapidly and stabilizes around 2% as the amplitude enlarges,
and becomes more scattered after the amplitude exceeds 1 cm=s2 .
While in the Y direction, the damping ratio first varies between 1
and 1.5 when the amplitude is lower than 1 cm=s2 , and then gradu-
ally increases as the amplitude gets higher. Using the data of the
aforementioned 2-h-long segment (9:00 through 11:00 a.m. on
August 22), the damping ratios estimated based on the outputs of
the accelerometers and the GPS are plotted in Fig. 22 against the
vibration amplitudes, and the comparison again shows a good
agreement. Generally, damping ratios of the supertall building in
the two orthogonal directions ranged from 1 to 2% during the pas-
sage of Typhoon Nuri.
Fig. 20. Typical example of random decrement signature
Serviceability Evaluations
Occupant comfort is a major concern in serviceability evaluations
of supertall buildings under strong wind conditions. It has been
widely accepted that accelerations of high-rise structures are the
most-appropriate response component for the serviceability assess-
ment. A number of structural standards and codes of practice pro-
vide the guidelines for the serviceability evaluation. Given the
natural frequencies of the first sway modes of the supertall building
are approximately 0.140 Hz in the X direction and 0.145 Hz in the
Y direction, respectively, this study evaluates the occupant comfort
at the top floor of the supertall building by adopting ISO 6897 (ISO
1984) which is specifically applicable for low-frequency horizontal

© ASCE 04016097-12 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 04016097


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Fig. 21. Variation of damping ratios in X and Y directions with vibra-
tion amplitudes
motions of tall buildings (0.063–1 Hz). ISO 6897 (ISO 1984) sug-
gests that the RMS acceleration response of a building under the
wind action with a 5-year return period (RP) should not exceed
σa ¼ 0.026 × f 1−0.412 ð8Þ
where σa = RMS, or standard deviation, of a building’s acceleration
response; and f1 = building’s fundamental frequency. For RMS
acceleration responses of a building under the wind action with
a 1-year return period, it is suggested to multiply that for a 5-year
return period by a factor of 0.72. As the RMS acceleration criteria
of the supertall building for a 5-year return period in direction X
Fig. 22. Comparison of amplitude-dependent damping ratios estimated by the outputs from accelerometers and GPS
© ASCE 04016097-13
J. Struct. Eng., 04016097
and Y are 5.8 and 5.7 cm=s2 , those for a 1-year return period are 4.2
and 4.1 cm=s2 , respectively.
With the aim of thoroughly evaluating the serviceability of
the supertall building, this study also employs the building’s accel-
eration responses collected during the passages of four other
typhoons besides Nuri (Li et al. 2014), namely Neoguri, Hagupit,
Molave, and Goni. The maximum hourly mean wind speeds mea-
sured at the WGL station during these typhoons are presented in
Table 4. The wind speeds at Waglan Island were measured at a
height of 83 m, and can be adjusted to those at a height of 200 m
using a power law with exponent of 0.11 recommended in the
current Hong Kong Wind Code of Practice (Buildings Department
2004). Based on probability analysis of historic typhoon speed data
measured at Waglan Island, Holmes et al. (2009) suggested that the
maximum hourly mean wind speed at a height of 200 m at Waglan
Island is 34.0 m=s for a 5-year return period, and 23.7 m=s for a
1-year return period. According to the results presented in Table 4,
the return periods of Goni and Neoguri were under 1 year, those
of Molave and Hagupit were between 1 and five years, and that of
Nuri was over 5 years.
In the study by Li et al. (2014), the maximum RMS acceleration
responses measured atop the supertall building in the two orthogo-
nal directions (X and Y) during the four other typhoons (filled
circles) were presented in Fig. 23, against the maximum hourly
mean wind speed measured at WGL station during the typhoons,
along with the indications of the return periods of these four ty-
phoons and the occupant comfort criteria suggested by ISO 6897
(ISO 1984). For Typhoon Nuri, as discussed in the previous sec-
tions, there was a noticeable time lag between the maximizations of
hourly mean wind speed at Waglan Island (around 6:40 p.m. on
August 22) and the RMS acceleration responses of the supertall
building (around 10:50 p.m. on August 22), since these two sites
were submerged in different typhoon regions at the same time. The
wind measurements showed that the mean wind speed from 10:30
to 11:30 p.m. on August 22 at WGL station was 26.2 m=s at a
height of 200 m, which was 9.3 m=s lower than the maximum
J. Struct. Eng.
 Table 4. Maximum Hourly Mean Wind Speed at Waglan Island 1. During Nuri’s landfall, low level jet-like structures were ob-
Wind speed at served in the mean wind speed profiles at the eyewalls and out-
the height above skirt regions. The jet height appeared to be dependent upon the
ground (m=s) storm-relative position and upwind exposure conditions: inner
Date
Typhoon (MM/DD/YYYY) 83 m 200 m Wind direction
typhoon areas corresponded to lower jet heights, and more-
rugged upwind terrains were associated with more uplifted
Neoguri 4/18/2008 21.1 23.1 SSE jets. Besides, the profiles of mean wind direction below a 2 km
Nuri 8/22/2008 32.2 35.5 SSW height were also found to be noticeably distorted because of
Hagupit 9/23/2008 30.0 32.8 NE
rugged topography. However, these distortions caused by topo-
Molave 7/18/2009 25.6 27.9 SSW
Goni 8/04/2009 16.1 17.6 ENE graphic effects in wind speeds, and directions have not thor-
oughly been considered in the wind-resistant design of supertall
Note: ENE = east by northeast; NE = northeast; SSE = south by southeast; buildings.
SSW = south by southwest. 2. The noticeable phase differences among the mean horizontal
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wind speeds measured at the two meteorological stations and

Fig. 23. Variation of maximum RMS acceleration responses with
hourly mean wind speeds measured at Waglan Island
hourly mean wind speed of 35.5 m=s presented in Table 4. There-
fore, it is more reasonable to adopt the hourly mean wind speed
of 26.2 m=s, which is plotted in Fig. 23 (filled square) for Nuri.
Obviously, all of the measured RMS accelerations of the supertall
building during these five typhoons met the occupant comfort
criteria of ISO 6897 (ISO 1984) for a 1-year period, suggesting
that the serviceability of this high-rise building under typhoon con-
dition is satisfactory. As expected, an increasing trend of RMS ac-
celerations of the supertall building with hourly mean wind speed
can also be readily observed in this figure.
Concluding Remarks
This paper investigated the wind characteristics in the ABL dur-
ing different stages of Typhoon Nuri, which made landfall over
Hong Kong, and its impact on a 420-m-high supertall building in
the metropolis. Nuri distinguished itself from other typhoons by
passing over the city center of Hong Kong directly, submerging
a high density of urban civil structures into its eye and eyewall re-
gions. During the entire passage of Nuri, the wind characteristics
over open terrain at the CCH and WGL offshore meteorological
stations, and those over urban terrain observed atop the supertall
building in the city center, were presented and discussed. More-
over, the structural performance of the supertall building during
Nuri was investigated. Some conclusions from this study are as
follows:
atop the supertall building revealed their discrepant storm-
relative locations. The dramatic decline of wind strength atop
the supertall building, compared to those above the offshore
meteorological stations, reflected the severe shielding effects
caused by the local terrain condition (e.g., hills and buildings).
3. The relationship between the gust factor and turbulence inten-
sity during the typhoon can be described by a power law. The
turbulence integral length scales in both longitudinal and lateral
directions varied with mean wind speed, and the longitudinal
turbulence integral length scale showed a significant increasing
trend with mean wind speed.
4. The acceleration responses derived from the outputs of the GPS
were well correlated with those measured by the accelerometers,
which showed evident dependences upon approaching wind
strength during the passage of Nuri. Based on the RMS values
of the building’s accelerations, the structural responses at the
eyewall regions were more than 10 times of those at relative
calm regions such as the typhoon eye and outskirts.
5. The resonant and quasi-static background components of the
structural dynamic responses were extracted from the GPS data.
The results showed that the building’s responses were domi-
nated by the resonant responses at high wind speeds but the
background responses still contributed considerably to the total
responses of the high-rise building.
6. Natural frequencies determined from the field measurements
gradually decreased by 0.003 Hz as the building’s vibration am-
plitude increased from 0 to 2 cm=s2 . Damping ratios generally
increased with the vibration amplitude, and the measurement
results of the fundamental modal damping ratios basically var-
ied between 1 and 2%, which are recommended in the wind-
resistant designs of similar supertall buildings for serviceability
considerations.
7. The serviceability of the supertall building during the entire
passage of Nuri met the occupancy comfort criteria suggested
by ISO 6897 (ISO 1984), which are dependent on 10-min RMS
acceleration responses of a building and its fundamental natural
frequencies.
Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant
from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Admin-
istrative Region, China (Project No. CityU 118213) and a research
grant from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project
No. 51178179). The authors are grateful to the owners and manage-
ment officials of the monitored building for their supports to the
monitoring project. Thanks are due to Dr. J. Yi, Dr. L. H. Zhi,
Prof. S. X. Zhang, Dr. Z. M. Ma, and Dr. Alex To for their valuable
contributions to the SHM study presented in this paper.

© ASCE 04016097-14 J. Struct. Eng.

J. Struct. Eng., 04016097

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