Structural Performance Assessment and Control of Super Tall Buildings During Construction

This paper addresses the structural performance assessment and control for super tall buildings during construction. Due to increasing structural complexity and economic investment of super tall buildings in recent years, the construction duration prolongs. Consequently, potential safety hazards may occur in structure when suffering from horizontal loads and vertical loads as well as non-loading effects in construction stage. The authors introduced performance based structural design (PBSD) methodology for the performance assessment and control of different structural states in different construction stages. The situation that the structural system will change along with the ongoing of construction procedure is considered. The critical issues with PBSD of super tall buildings during construction are fully addressed. By considering both gravity loads and lateral loads, the design criteria for construction stage structural systems were firstly discussed. A super tall building project was taken as an example in this paper to illustrate the proposed structural performance assessment during construction. It was shown that the proposed structural performance assessment method during construction phase is feasible and effective. It was also found that the arrangement of the lock-ins of outriggers for different construction stages is the key measure to control the performance of the mega frame outrigger corewall structures during construction. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.