Along-Wind Response of High-Rise Buildings Subjected to Hurricane Boundary Layer Winds

Recent studies show that characteristics of hurricane surface winds are different from those of nonhurricane surface winds. The characteristics relevant to analyzing high-rise buildings include mean wind speed profile, turbulence intensity, and turbulence spectrum. The objective of this study is to quantify how these differences influence along-wind response of high-rise buildings in an open terrain. After summarizing recent findings in hurricane boundary layer winds, the characteristics of high-rise buildings in terms of natural frequency and dimension aspect ratio were discussed and the role of aerodynamic admittance in unsteady analysis of high-rise buildings were investigated. To illustrate the discussion, three different sample high-rise buildings with various characteristics were chosen for unsteady analysis of the along-wind effects of hurricanes. The results showed that for very-high-rise buildings, hurricane winds caused higher along-wind forces and responses compared with regular boundary layer high winds. This difference between hurricane winds and regular boundary layer winds decreased for lower heights and higher natural frequencies. Results for regular boundary layer high winds were well matched with high-frequency force balance (HFFB) measurements; however, for hurricane winds, root-mean-square base moments were higher than those from HFFB measurements. (C) 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.