GATEWAY COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE

AND DESIGN

TALL BUILDING DESIGN – IX

LESSON PLAN -3C

Structural Systems for Tall Buildings – Part II

Miscellaneous topics mentioned in the University Syllabus
 QUICK RECAP OF LESSON PLAN – 1, 2, 3A & 3B
• Definition of Tall buildings- structural viewpoint. Height
intertwined with ‘tall-ness’

• The role of CTBUH

• Historical Development of Tall Buildings

• Gilded Age of America and its overall impact including

proliferation of Tall Buildings.

• Tall Building Structural Systems: Rigid Frame, Flat Plate,

Core system, Shear Wall Systems, Shear Frame
Systems, Mega Column, Mega Core, Outrigger Systems,
Tube System, Diagrid systems
 CONTENT OF LESSON PLAN – 3C
Explanation of certain terms mentioned in the
University syllabus:

• Static & Dynamic Approach to Tall Building Design.

• Buckling Analysis of a Tall Building
• Coupled Shear Walls
• Infill Wall
• Composite Floor Systems
• Aluminium facades
• Composite Floor systems

Explanation of certain phenomenon:

• Foundation Options for Tall buildings
• Damping
STATIC & DYNAMIC APPROACH TO TALL BUILDING DESIGN

❑ Structural analysis is mainly concerned with finding

out the behaviour of a physical structure when
subjected to force.

❑ This action can be in the form of load due to the

weight of things such as people, furniture, wind,
snow, etc. or some other kind of excitation such as
an earthquake, shaking of the ground due to a blast
nearby, etc.
STATIC & DYNAMIC APPROACH TO TALL BUILDING DESIGN

❑ A static load is one which varies very slowly. A

dynamic load is one which changes with time fairly
quickly in comparison to the structure's natural
frequency.

❑ If it changes slowly, the structure's response may be

determined with static analysis, but if it varies quickly
(relative to the structure's ability to respond), the
response must be determined with a dynamic
analysis.
STATIC & DYNAMIC APPROACH TO TALL BUILDING DESIGN

❑ The distinction is made between the dynamic and the

static analysis on the basis of whether the applied
action has enough acceleration in comparison to the
structure's natural frequency.

❑ If a load is applied sufficiently slowly, the inertia

forces (Newton's first law of motion) can be ignored
and the analysis can be simplified as static analysis.
STATIC & DYNAMIC APPROACH TO TALL BUILDING DESIGN

❑ Structural dynamics, is a type of structural analysis

which covers the behaviour of a structure subjected
to dynamic (actions having high acceleration)
loading.

❑ Dynamic loads include people, wind, waves, traffic,

earthquakes, and blasts.

❑ Any structure can be subjected to dynamic loading.

❑ Dynamic analysis can be used to find dynamic

displacements, time history, and modal analysis.
 BUCKLING OF A TALL BUILDING

❑ Tall Building has its lower end

built-in and upper end free.
❑ (Assuming the building weight is
uniformly distributed along its
height) the cantilever has a
tendency to buckle under its own
weight.
❑ The mathematical equation for
the lowest buckling load Q per
unit height of the cantilever is:

Q = 7.837 X E X I/L3 where, E = Modulus of

elasticity of construction material of building,
I is the moment of inertia and L = height of
the building
 COUPLED SHEAR WALLS

❑ In many shear wall buildings a regular pattern of

openings will be required to accommodate windows
or doors or both.

❑ The figure shows a number of shear walls

interconnected or coupled to each other by beams.

❑ These walls are generally known as Coupled Shear

Walls.
 INFILL WALLS.
• Infill wall is the supported wall that closes the
perimeter of a building constructed with a three-
dimensional framework structure (generally made
of steel or reinforced concrete).

• The structural frame ensures the bearing function,

whereas the infill wall serves to separate inner and outer
space, filling up the boxes of the outer frames.
INFILL WALLS.
 INFILL WALLS.
• Most reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings in
developing countries are infilled with masonry walls.

• Experience during the past earthquakes has

demonstrated the beneficial effects as well as the ill-
effects of the presence of infill masonry walls.

•In at least two moderate earthquakes (magnitude 6.0

to 6.5 on Richter scale) in India, RC frame buildings
with brick masonry infills have shown excellent
performance even though most such buildings were not
designed and detailed for seismic response.
 INFILL WALLS.
• Most multi-storey building constructions in the
developing countries consist of RC frames with URM
(Un-Reinforced Masonry) infills.

•Residential or office buildings which typically have a

fairly large number of infills placed more or less
uniformly and have small to moderate panel size. It
should be possible to develop suitable detailing schemes
for anchoring masonry reinforcement into the frames.

•This improves the out-of-plane behaviour of the infills.

In such situations, the infills could be relied upon to
ensure good seismic performance.
ALUMINIUM FACADE SYSTEM
 ALUMINIUM FACADES
• Use of structural steel and later RCC ensured that
exterior walls of buildings are no longer required for
structural support. Curtain walls thus arrived in the
construction scene.

•During the 1970s began the widespread use of

aluminium extrusions for mullions. Aluminium offers
the unique advantage of being able to be easily extruded
into nearly any shape required for design and aesthetic
purposes.

• Sealing methods and types have evolved over the

years, and as a result, today’s curtain walls are high-
performance systems which require little maintenance
ALUMINIUM FACADES
 ALUMINIUM FACADES -STICK FRAME
• The vast majority of
curtain walls are installed
long pieces (referred to
as sticks) between floors
vertically and between
vertical members
horizontally.

•Framing members may be

fabricated in a shop, but all
installation and glazing is
typically performed at the
jobsite.
 ALUMINIUM FACADES –PANEL
• The anchor points are
identified first, and a grid line in
accordance with the
architectural project is specified.

•Panel curtain wall system is

composed of a series of
preassembled units which have a
story height and one or two axes
width.

• They are assembled and glazed

in the factory, and they are
carried to the construction site.
 ALUMINIUM FACADES –LOADS
• Curtain wall systems must be designed to handle all
loads imposed on it as well as keep air and water from
penetrating the building envelope.

• The loads imposed on the curtain wall are transferred

to the building structure through the anchors which
attach the mullions to the building. The building
structure design must account for these loads. These
could be dead load, wind load, seismic load, snow load
thermal load & Blast load.
 ALUMINIUM FACADES –AIR INFILTRATION
• Air infiltration is the air which passes through the
curtain wall from the exterior to the interior of the
building. The air is infiltrated through the gaskets,
through imperfect joinery between the horizontal and
vertical mullions, through weep holes, and through
imperfect sealing.

•The American Architectural Manufacturers

Association (AAMA) is an industry trade group in the
U.S. that has developed voluntary specifications
regarding acceptable levels of air infiltration through a
curtain wall. This limit is expressed (in the USA) in cubic
feet per minute per square foot of wall area at a given
test pressure.
ALUMINIUM FACADES –AIR INFILTRATION
 ALUMINIUM FACADES –WATER PENETRATION
• Water penetration is defined as water passing from
the exterior of the building through to the interior of
the curtain wall system.

• Sometimes, depending on the building specifications,

a small amount of controlled water on the interior is
deemed acceptable.

• Controlled water penetration is defined as water that

penetrates beyond the inner most vertical plane of the
test specimen, but has a designed means of drainage
back to the exterior.
COMPOSITE FLOOR SYSTEMS
 COMPOSITE FLOOR SYSTEMS
• Composite slabs, comprising lightly reinforced
concrete cast on profiled steel decking, are an option
whether the beams are downstand or integrated within
the slab depth for a shallow floor form of construction.

• The slabs are normally reinforced using an upper

layer of mesh and, occasionally, additional bars in the
troughs (usually for longer periods of fire
resistance and heavy loads).

•Composite slabs work well when speed of

construction is important. Bundles of decking are lifted
into place on the steel structure, for distribution by
hand. The ability to stack the pieces of decking into
bundles also reduces transport time and costs.
COMPOSITE FLOOR SYSTEMS
 TALL BUILDINGS
FOUNDATION & SUPERSTRUCTURE
 TALL BUILDINGS – FOUNDATION & SUPERSTRUCTURE
There are a number of characteristics of tall buildings
that can have a significant influence on foundation
design, including the following:

•The building weight.

•Differential settlements between the high- and low-rise
portions.
•The lateral forces imposed by wind loading, and the
consequent moments on the foundation system.
•Wind-induced cyclic vertical and lateral loading on the
foundation system.
•Seismic action will induce additional lateral forces.
•Dynamic nature of wind-induced and seismically induced
loads - potential to give rise to resonance within the
structure.
 TALL BUILDINGS – FOUNDATION & SUPERSTRUCTURE

The factors that may influence the type of foundation

selected to support a tall building include the following :

• Location and type of structure.

• Magnitude and distribution of loadings.
• Ground conditions.
• Access for construction equipment.
• Durability requirements.
• Effects of installation on adjacent foundations, structures,
people.
• Relative costs.
• Local construction practices.
 TALL BUILDINGS – FOUNDATION & SUPERSTRUCTURE
The common foundation options are discussed below. :
• Raft or mat foundations
A raft (mat) foundation to support the entire structure
may be feasible for buildings of moderate height. However,
for very tall buildings, such a shallow foundation may not
be able to develop adequate resistance to horizontal and
moment loadings.
 TALL BUILDINGS – FOUNDATION & SUPERSTRUCTURE
• Piled foundations
Often the ground conditions at a site are not suitable for a
shallow raft/mat foundation system, especially for high-rise
buildings where the vertical and lateral loadings imposed on
the foundation are significant. In these circumstances, it is
necessary to support the building loads on piles, either
single piles or pile groups, generally located beneath
columns and load bearing walls.
 TALL BUILDINGS – FOUNDATION & SUPERSTRUCTURE
• Piled raft foundations
A piled raft foundation is a composite system in which
both the piles and the raft share the applied structural
loadings. Within a conventional piled foundation, it may
be possible for the number of piles to be reduced
significantly by considering the contribution of the raft to
the overall foundation capacity.
TALL BUILDINGS
DAMPING
 DAMPING
✓ Damping systems mitigate
wind-induced vibration and
earthquake shaking .

✓ 3 types of damping systems

employed for taller buildings –
active, passive & aerodynamic
systems.

✓ Base isolators are used for

decoupling the building structure
from the horizontal components
of earthquake ground motions.
These isolators act as springs.
Good upto 7 stories high.
 DAMPING
Active damping systems:
• Requires motors, sensors &
computer controls.
• Requires power – which may be
disrupted during an earthquake
• Better suited for wind- induced
loading.
 DAMPING
Passive damping systems

• Incorporated within a
structure to absorb portion of
wind-induced or seismic energy

• Manufactured dampers –
visco-elastic, viscous fluid (act
as large shock absorbers),
friction (dissipates energy when
the slip force of 2 surfaces
exceeds limit) & metallic yield
dampers (happens through
inelastic deformation of
material)
 DAMPING

FLUID VISCOUS DAMPER

FRICTION DAMPER
 DAMPING
Aerodynamic damping
systems

• Cross wind pressures

create transverse vibrations.

• Aerodynamic shaping
improve performance
against wind-induced
forces.

•Rounded, tapered plan s,

modified corners, addition
of openings through
buildings
REFERENCES:

• http://www.ctbuh.org/
• Structural Analyses & Design of Tall Buildings
- Bungale S Taranath
• Tall Building: Imagining the Skyscraper – Scott
Johnson
• Tall Buldings Structural Systems and
Aerodynamic Form by Mehmet Halis Gunel &
Huseyin Emre Iglin
ASSIGNMENT

Watch any one of the following videos uploaded

on YouTube by National Geographic channel
and write about their constructional challenges,
the and the adopted remedies:

1. Burj Khalifa
2. Petronas Towers
3. Aldar HQ Abu Dhabi