Wind-induced vibration fragility of outer-attached tower crane to super-tall buildings: A case study

To gain insight into the wind-induced safety concerns associated with attached tower cranes during the construction of super-tall buildings, a 606 m level frame-core tube super-tall building is selected to investigate the wind-induced vibration response and fragility of an outer-attached tower crane at all stages of construction. The wind velocity time history samples are artificially generated and used to perform dynamic response analyses of the crane to observe the effects of wind velocity and wind direction under its working and non-working resting state. The adverse effects of the relative displacement response at different connection supports are also identified. The wind-resistant fragility curves of the crane are obtained by introducing the concept of incremental dynamic analysis. The results from the investigation indicate that a large relative displacement between the supports can substantially amplify the response of the crane at high levels. Such an effect becomes more serious when the lifting arm is perpendicular to the plane of the connection supports. The flexibility of super-tall buildings should be considered in the design of outer-attached tower cranes, especially for anchorage systems. Fragility analysis can be used to specify the maximum appropriate height of the tower crane for each performance level.