Experimental investigation on coupled vibration characteristics of wind-excited tall buildings

Contemporary tall buildings constructed with high-strength and light-weight materials become relatively flexible and lightly damped, and the fluctuating wind forces acting on the buildings may cause excessive vibrations, especially at the vicinity of vortex lock-in wind speed, where the natural frequency of the buildings is synchronized with the vortex shedding frequency. Given that tall buildings tend to be designed with unconventional shape involving innovative structural systems and complex geometry, the correlations among three force components may accentuate building motions significantly. In this study, the coupling characteristics between the alongwind and crosswind vibrations of tall buildings with symmetric shape and distinct natural frequencies in two directions are investigated through a serious of aeroelastic model tests. The response standard deviations and power spectral densities are calculated, respectively, based on the displacement data measured at multiple levels of wind speed and structural damping ratio. Then the coupled response is extracted from the alongwind response in frequency domain through Fourier transform and inverse Fourier transform, and the standard deviations of the coupled response are calculated based on time history analysis, which are compared with that of the crosswind response to investigate the relationship between the alongwind and crosswind motions. Moreover, the amplitude ratio, phase difference, and coherence of the response components are also calculated for further discussing the coupling effects and examining the coupled vibration characteristics.