SCIENCE CHINA

Technological Sciences
Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 tech.scichina.com www.springerlink.com

Corresponding author (email: minggu@tongji.edu.cn)
RESEARCH PAPER
October 2010 Vol.53 No.10: 26302646
doi: 10.1007/s11431-010-4016-2
Wind-resistant studies on tall buildings and structures
GU Ming
State Key Laboratory of Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Received February 5, 2010; accepted March 23, 2010

This paper introduces some aspects of wind-resistant studies of our research team on tall buildings and structures. Wind tunnel
tests were carried out on 27 typical tall building models by using wind pressure scanning and HFFB techniques. The character-
istics of wind pressures and forces acting on these buildings were analyzed. Some results have been adopted in a Shanghai
code for structural design of steel tall buildings. Interference effects on wind forces and wind pressures among two and three
tall buildings were experimentally investigated with about 10000 testing conditions. Regression analyses of the interference
factors under different parameter conditions were made and the main regression formulas are presented. Theoretical study on
equivalent static wind loads of tall buildings and structures are then introduced. Especially, a new concept of mode coupling
factor and a modified SRSS method for wind response and equivalent static wind load of complicated tall buildings and
structures with consideration of multi mode contributions and their coupling effects are presented. Finally, practical applica-
tions of wind-resistant studies on tall building and structures, taking the Guangzhou New TV Tower as an example, are pre-
sented.
tall building and structure, wind pressure and force, interference effect, equivalent static wind load, application

Citation: Gu M. Wind-resistant studies on tall buildings and structures. Sci China Tech Sci, 2010, 53: 26302646, doi: 10.1007/s11431-010-4016-2



1 Introduction
Recent years, many tall buildings and structures have been
or are being constructed, and more are being planned in the
world. Wind loads and responses are the key factors for
their structural design.
Davenport laid the foundation stone of wind-resistant
theory of tall buildings in the 60s of last century [13]. Af-
ter that, researchers have made great development in this
important field.
The research team of the author has also made efforts in
some issues in the field of wind-resistance of tall buildings
and structures. Characteristics of wind pressures and forces
in time domain and frequency domain acting the tall build-
ings with various cross-section shapes were experimentally
investigated by using wind pressure scanning technique,
HFFB technique and aeroelastic model test technique [48].
Aerodynamic damping of some typical buildings was stud-
ied through aeroelastic model wind tunnel test [4, 9]. Basic
principle and methods of equivalent static wind loads on tall
buildings and structures have also been our concerned
problems [5, 6, 7, 1015]. Especially, great efforts have
been made on interference effects of wind loads among
grouped tall buildings [1625]. Furthermore, field meas-
urements of wind characteristics and building responses
[26], local wind pressure characteristics of tall buildings and
design method of cladding [18, 27], wind-rain loads on tall
buildings and towers [28], numerical simulation of wind
loads on tall buildings [2934], comparison study on wind
effects and earthquake effects on tall buildings with consid-
eration of soil-structure interaction [35, 36], wind-induced
fatigue life reliability of complicated steel structures [37]
and control methods of wind-induced vibration of tall
buildings and structures with consideration of aeroelastic
effects [3843] were also paid attention to. Some of the

GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10 2631
above aspects are introduced in this paper. Finally
wind-resistant study on Guangzhou New TV Tower with a
height of 610 m [44] is taken as a representative example
from the studies on dozens of tall buildings and structures
carried out by the team.
2 Wind pressures and forces on typical buildings
2.1 Building models and testing conditions
The building models for the test had different cross-section
shapes, including square, rectangular, triangle, Y-type, pol-
ygon, L-type, ladder shape, corner-modified square cross-
section shape and double-tower, which are shown in Figure
1. The heights of all the models were 60 cm, representing
300 m high prototype buildings in terms of the scale ratio of
1/500. All of the models were tested by using pressure
scanning technique and some were further tested by using
HFFB technique.
Four categories of exposure conditions, corresponding to
terrain categories, A, B, C and D, were simulated in the
wind tunnel at a length scale of 1/500 in accordance with


Figure 1 Cross sections of models.
2632 GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10
the Chinese code. In addition, the simulated index of co-
herence function of fluctuating wind speed ranged 79 [45],
which matched the suggestion by Simiu and Scanlan [46].
For the wind pressure test, the testing wind speed at the
model top was 1013 m/s. The testing wind direction in-
crement was 1. A DSM3000 scan valve system was used to
simultaneously measure the wind pressures.
2.2 Characteristics of wind pressure coefficients
The wind pressure coefficient is defined as,

2
( ) ( ) / [0.5 ]
p H
C t p t U = , (1)
where U
H
is the wind speed at the building top.
From the test results, variations of mean and fluctuating
wind pressure coefficients with wind direction and the wind
pressure coefficient distributions on the measuring layer
plan and along the height were obtained. The Power spec-
trum density (PSD in short) of fluctuating wind pressures,
correlation coefficients and coherence functions were also
analyzed. But only some results are presented here due to
the limited space of the paper. Figures 2 and 3 show the
wind pressure coefficients at typical taps on the measuring
layer 2, the height of which is 50.95 cm, of the triangular
and Y-type building models, respectively, under the terrain
category B with wind direction. The wind pressure coeffi-
cients on the measuring layers 2 and 4 (corresponding to the
heights on the model of 50.95 and 35.7, respectively) of the
triangular and Y-type building models at 0 wind direction
are presented in Figures 4 and 5, respectively. Figures 6 and
7 indicate the wind pressure coefficient distributions along
height of triangular and Y-type buildings at 0 wind direc-
tion, respectively.


Figure 2 Mean and RMS Cps at typical points of triangular model.

Figure 3 Mean and RMS Cps at typical measuring points of Y-type model.

Figure 4 Mean and RMS Cps on 2nd and 4th layers of triangular model (0 wind direction and Terrain B).
GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10 2633

Figure 5 Mean and RMS Cps on 2nd and 4th layers of Y-type model (0 wind direction and Terrain B).

Figure 6 Mean and RMS Cps along the height of triangular model ( 0 wind direction and Terrain B).

Figure 7 Mean and RMS Cps along the height of Y-type model ( 0 wind direction and Terrain B).
2.3 Wind forces
Wind forces acting on the buildings were then computed
based on the wind pressures. The wind force characteristics,
including wind force coefficient, PSD, coherence function
and so on, were analyzed in detail. Figures 8 and 9 show the
variations of wind force coefficients on different layers 1, 2,
3 and 4, which correspond to the heights of 57.15, 50.95,
43.8 and 35.7 mm on the building models, respectively, of
the triangular and Y-type models and with wind direction in
exposure category B. More results can be found in ref.
[57].
2.4 Across-wind forces on typical tall buildings adopt-
ed in a code
Based on the test results, variation laws of across-wind
forces acting on some typical buildings have been recog-
nized. Figure 10 shows the variation laws of across-wind
forces acting on buildings of rectangular cross-sections with
different side ratios and corner-modifications, where H is
the height of building; B and D are the width and depth of
building cross section, respectively; b is the corner-cut size.
The non-dimensional power spectrum density of across-
wind force of the buildings was assumed to have the fol-
lowing style.

{ } { }
2 2
2 2 2 2
( / )
( )
0.5 1 ( / ) ( / )
p p
Mx
H p p
S n f
fS f
U BH n f n f
o
|
|
=
+
, (2)
where S
Mx
(

f

) is the first generalized across-wind force
spectrum; f is the frequency; n = fB/U
H
; U
H
is the mean
wind speed at the top of the buildings; the parameters f
p
, S
p
,
2634 GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10

Figure 8 Wind force coefficients of triangular model vs. wind direction (Terrain B).

Figure 9 Wind force coefficients of Y-type model vs. wind direction (Terrain B).
| and o, being functions of aspect ratio, side ratio of the
cross section of the buildings and wind field condition, are
as follows.

5
2
10 (191 9.48 1.28 )
(68 21 3 ),
p w hr hr w
db db
f o o o o
o o

= + +
+

(3)


( )
0.4 2
1 2
0.1 0.0004e (0.84 2.12 0.05 )
(0.422 0.08 ),
w
p w hr hr
db db
S
o
o o o
o o

=
+

(4)


1.7 1.26 0.63 1.7 3.44/
(1 0.00473e )(0.065 e )e
w hr db
o o o
|

= + + , (5)
0.34
1.23
( 0.8 0.06 0.0007e )( 0.00006e )
(0.414 1.67 ),
w hr
w hr
db db
o o
o o o
o o

= + + +
+

(6)

/
hr
H BD o = , (7)
/
db
D B o = , (8)
1( ); 2( ); 3( ); 4( )
w
A B C D o = . (9)
The above equations are suitable for estimating the
across-wind forces of square buildings with aspect ratios
between 4 and 9, and rectangular buildings with side ratios
GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10 2635

Figure 10 Effects of parameters on the across-wind forces. (a) Effect of terrain condition; (b) effect of aspect ratio; (c) effect of side ratio; (d) effect of
corner-cut size (bevel corner model); (e) effect of corner-cut size (concave corner model).
between 0.5 and 2.0 under the four categories of terrain.
As for the square buildings with corner modifications,
the non-dimensional power spectrum density of across-wind
force, S
Mm
(

f

), was suggested to have the following style.

0
( ) ( ) ( )
Mm m M
S f C f S f = , (10)
where S
M0
(

f

) is the power spectrum of across-wind force of
the square building, i.e., S
Mx
(

f

) in eq. (2); and C
m
(

f

) is a
non-dimensional ratio between S
Mm
(

f

) and S
M0
(

f

), which is
listed in Table 1.
The RMS coefficient of the base moment and the base
shear force are, respectively, as
2 2
2
(0.002 0.017 1.4) (0.056 0.16
0.03)(0.03 0.622 4.357),
M w w db db
ht ht
C o o o o
o o
=
+ +

(11)

and
2 2
2
(0.018 0.0006 2.4) (0.0375 0.11
0.0117)(0.04 0.928 6.7),
S w w db db
ht ht
C o o o o
o o
= +
+ +
(12)

where
/ , ( min( , ))
ht
H T T B D o = = . (13)
The above formulas have been adopted in Specification
for steel structural design of tall buildings (2008). Also
these formulas were also used to compute across-wind dy-
namic responses of real tall buildings in their initial design
stages. The computation results were then compared with
the detailed wind tunnel test and computation results and it
was found that they generally matched well.
3 Across-wind aerodynamic damping of square
buildings
For super-tall buildings and structures, across-wind aerody-
namic damping may have great influence on the across-
wind dynamic response. Thus a experimental study on this
problem was performed. A SDOF tall building aeroelastic
2636 GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10
Table 1 Values of C
m
(

f

)
Cross-section Wind condition b/B
Non-dimensional frequency ( fB/U
H
)
0.100 0.125 0.150 0.175 0.200 0.225 0.250
Bevel
corner
Category B
5% 0.183 0.905 1.20 1.20 1.20 1.20 1.10
10% 0.070 0.349 0.568 0.653 0.684 0.670 0.653
20% 0.106 0.902 0.953 0.819 0.743 0.667 0.626
Category D
5% 0.368 0.749 0.922 0.955 0.943 0.917 0.897
10% 0.256 0.504 0.659 0.706 0.713 0.697 0.686
20% 0.339 0.974 0.977 0.894 0.841 0.805 0.790
Concave
corner
Category B
5% 0.106 0.595 0.980 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
10% 0.033 0.228 0.450 0.565 0.610 0.604 0.594
20% 0.042 0.842 0.563 0.451 0.421 0.400 0.400
Category D
5% 0.267 0.586 0.839 0.955 0.987 0.991 0.984
10% 0.091 0.261 0.452 0.567 0.613 0.633 0.628
20% 0.169 0.954 0.659 0.527 0.475 0.447 0.453

model system was specially designed for the test. The fre-
quency, mass distribution and damping could be easily ad-
justed for parametric study. Time-averaging method of
random decrease technique was adopted in the study to
identify the aerodynamic damping ratio.
Figure 11 presents the variations of the across-wind aer-
odynamic damping ratios of a square building model for
different terrain conditions and for different structural
damping. Negative aerodynamic damping at the reduced
wind speed of about 1013 can be seen in the figure. Based
on the testing results and the analyses, a simplified formula
for aerodynamic damping ratio of the square building with
aspect ratio of 6 can be derived for practical purpose as fol-
lows,
* 2 * * 2
* 2 2 * 2
0.0025(1 ( / 9.8) )( / 9.8) 0.000125( / 9.8)
(1 ( / 9.8) ) 0.0291( / 9.8)
a
U U U
U U
,
+
=
+
.
(14)
Figure 12 shows a comparison between computed re-
sponses of a building model with/without considering the
aerodynamic damping and those from a test of the building
aeroelastic model with the same parameters. As can be seen
from the figure that the computed dynamic displacements
are much closer to those from the aeroelastic model test if
the aerodynamic damping is taken into account.
4 Interference effect on wind forces and wind
pressures on tall buildings
4.1 Description of experiment and data processing
The wind tunnel measurements were carried out by using
high force balance technique and pressure scanning tech-
nique under different wind conditions. In the force balance
test, the principal building model, i.e., the interfered model,
has a height of 600 mm and a square cross section of
breadth of 100 mm. The fundamental frequency of the bal-
ance-model system was higher than 100 Hz. Two groups of
interfering models of different heights and cross-sec- tions
breadths were adopted in the test to investigate the interfer-
ence effects of height and breadth of the upstream build-
ing(s) on the principal building. The first group of the inter-
fering buildings had the same height h as the principal
building with square cross-section but different breadths of
0.5b, 0.75b, 1.0b, 1.5b and 2.0b, where b (=100 mm) was
the breadth of the principal building model; while the se-
cond group of interfering models had the same square
cross-section as the principal building model but different
heights of 0.5h, 0.75h, 1.0h, 1.25h and 1.5h, where h (=600
mm) was the height of the principal model. The breadth
ratio (B
r
)/height ratio (H
r
) were defined to be the ratio of the
breadth/height of the interfering building(s) to those of the


Figure 11 Variations of aerodynamic damping ratio with different parameters. (a) Effect of terrain condition; (b) effect of structural damping.
GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10 2637

Figure 12 Comparison of computed RMS displacements with those from
AE model test (Terrain A and structural damping ratio of 0.61%).
principal building hereafter. All the building models were
orientated with one face normal to the wind, while the cen-
ter-to-center spacing among them varies in along-wind di-
rection (x) and across-wind direction (y) in a coordinate grid
shown in Figure13(a). The basic two- or three-building con-
figurations mean that the principal building and the inter-
fering building(s) hereafter have the same shape and sizes.
In the pressure scanning test, only the interference effects
from one interfering building was investigated. There were
496 measuring taps on the principal square building model.
The interfering building models had the same cross-section
sizes as those of the principal model, but had the heights 0.7,
1.0 and 1.3 times the height of the principal model. The
relative positions between the principal model and interfer-
ing model are indicated in Figure 13(b). Totally, for the
force and pressure tests, the testing cases were over 10000.0.
The interference factor (IF in short), which quantitatively
describes the interference effects, was defined:
IF = [Mean wind force (or wind pressure or dynamic
respoinse) of the principal building under
intererence]/ [Mean wind force (or wind pressure or
dynamic
respoinse) of the isolated principal building]. (15)
In fact, the interference effect among three buildings was
very complex and was difficult to be expressed in a simple
style. In order to simplify the complexity of the problem
and further raise some clauses for building structural design
codes, an envelope interference factor (EIF) was proposed
to describe the dynamic interference effects by maximizing
the IFs in the reduced velocity ranges of V
r
= 29.
Furthermore, regression analysis of the interference fac-
tors under different parameter conditions was made and the
regression formulas were derived. RIF hereafter represents
the regression interference factor. Only some typical results,
especially the regression formulas of the three-building
configuration, are presented in the following text.
4.2 Mean force interference factor
4.2.1 Comparison of mean IFs between basic two-building
and three-building configurations
Statistical results for a thorough description of the mean
interference factors of the two- and three-building configu-
rations in the exposure category B are firstly shown in Fig-
ure 14, where p represents the percentage of the positions of
the corresponding mean interference factor over the whole
test positions of the configurations. From this figure, one
can see that the shielding effects of three-building configu-
ration are more significant than two-building configuration.
The channeling effect can also be found in the tests.
4.2.2 Effect of breadth ratio of three-building configura-
tion
The variations of the mean IF with B
r
can be linearly re-
gressed, which shows that for most of the positions of the
buildings the mean IF decreases with the increase of B
r
. The
regression results are very similar to those of the two-
building configuration [19, 21]. Correspondingly, the linear
formulas of the mean RIF in exposure category B with B
r
of
the interfering buildings are as follows,

0.276 0.752 ( 0.5),
0.123 0.876 ( 0.75),
( 1.0),
0.175 1.102 ( 1.5),
0.279 1.162 ( 2.0).
r
r
r
r
r
IF B
IF B
RIF IF B
IF B
IF B
+ =

+ =

= =

+ =

+ =

(16)



Figure 13 X-Y coordinate grid for positions of interfering buildings. (a) Model arrangements for HFFB test; (b) model arrangements for pressure test.
2638 GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10

Figure 14 Comparison of distributions of MFIF between basic two- and
three-building configurations.
4.2.3 Effect of height ratio of three-building configuration
The results show that two lower interfering buildings of H
r
= 0.5 produce insignificant interference effects, with most
of the interference factors being within the range between
0.9 and 1.0. The sensitive heights of interfering buildings
for the mean interference effects are from 0.75h to 1.25h,
whereas the interference effects remain almost the same for
the higher interfering buildings. The mean RIF in exposure
category B for the different height ratios were simply for-
mulated as follows,

1 ( 0.5),
0.787 0.195 ( 0.5),
0.366 0.637 ( 0.75),
( 1.0),
0.103 1.110 ( 1.25).
r
r
r
r
r
H
IF H
RIF IF H
IF H
IF H
<

+ =

= + =

+ >

(17)

4.2.4 Effect of upstream terrain
The MIFs in the two typical exposure categories have statis-
tically linear relationships, and furthermore, the MIFs for
different B
r
are almost the same. Thus, a simple formula
describing the linear relationship were derived (eq. (18)).
0.099 0.924
D B
IF IF = + . (18)
Moreover, for the effect of upstream terrain on the MIF
of the different height ratio configuration, strong linear cor-
relations exist in the MIFs between the two upwind terrains
for all the configurations of height ratio. The MIF of any
configuration of H
r
in exposure category D can thus be
simply predicted from the corresponding MIF in exposure
category B by
0.078 0.982
D B
IF IF = + . (19)
4.3 Dynamic force interference factor
4.3.1 IFs of basic two-building configuration and three-
building configuration
Statistical analysis of the dynamic interference effects in
along- and across-wind directions was made and the results
are shown in Figure 15. The results in Figure15(a) reveal
that two interfering buildings can produce stronger inter-
ference effects (amplification) than a single interfering
building in the along-wind direction. But the interference
effects in the across-wind direction caused by two interfer-
ing buildings are generally weaker than those by a single
interfering building for most of the interfering building ar-
rangements from Figure 15 (b). Even so, the EIF is greater
or equal to 3 for 1% of the whole sets of interfering building
arrangements of the three-building configuration.
4.3.2 Effect of height ratio of three-building configuration
Results revealing the effects of the two interfering buildings
with different heights on the dynamic IFs are presented here.
There is an indication from the regression analysis that dy-
namic EIFs between the different height ratios (H
r
=0.5, 0.75,
1.0, 1.25 and 1.5) still show linear correlations.
Based on a great quantity of computation, the regression
relations of the EIFs for the different H
r
can expressed by
eq. (20). The values of C
1
and C
2
in eq. (20) are listed in
Table 2.

1 2
= + RIF C C EIF . (20)
4.3.3 Effect of breadth ratio of three-building configura-
tion
It seems difficult to find the satisfied regression dynamic
factors of breadth ratio as those of height ratio from the
wind tunnel tests.
4.3.4 Effect of upstream terrain
The results indicated that the relations between EIF
B
and
EIF
D
in the along-wind direction can be expressed by linear


Figure 15 Comparison of distribution of EIF between two-building and three-building configurations. (a) Along-wind; (b) across-wind.
GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10 2639
Table 2 Values of C
1
and C
2
in eq. (20)
H
r

0.5

0.75

1

1.25

1.5
C
1
C
2
C
1
C
2
C
1
C
2
C
1
C
2
C
1
C
2

Along-wind 1.011 0.031

0.698 0.408

0 1

1.317 1.988

1.524 2.256
Across-wind 1.018 0.068

0.627 0.45

0 1

0.028 1.038

0.067 1.118


Figure 16 Mean wind pressure IF on side walls of principal building (0 wind direction, q
h
= 1.0). (a) x/B=2; (b) x/B=3; (c) x/B=4; (d) x/B=5; (e) x/B=6;
(f) x/B=8.
formulas, while the relations between EIF
B
and EIF
D
in the
across-wind direction for the height ratio of H
r
>1 can be
expressed by a second-order regression polynomial rather
than a linear formula. Then, the relation of the EIFs be-
tween the two upstream terrains for all the height ratio con-
figurations can be expressed by eq. (21) for the along-wind
and across-wind directions, where C
1
, C
2
and C
3
, can be
found in ref. [22].

2
1 2 3
( )
D B B
RIF C C EIF C EIF = + + . (21)
As for the variations of the dynamic EIF for different B
r

in the exposure categories D with those in category B, the
regression results can be found in eq. (22), where C
1
, C
2
and
C
3
, can be found in ref. [22].

2 3
1 2 3 4
( ) ( )
D B B B
EIF C C EIF C EIF C EIF = + + + . (22)
4.4 Wind pressure interference factor
Through the wind tunnel tests, a large amount of data of
mean and fluctuating wind pressures on the principal build-
ing interfered by an adjacent building with different heights
and relative positions and the corresponding wind pressure
IFs have been obtained. The results reveal that the increase
of space between the two buildings amplifies mean pressure
on the windward face and magnitudes of mean suctions on
the side face, especially on its top corner along leading edge.
However, it has little effects on mean pressure over the
leeward face of the principal building. In addition, consid-
ering the effects of changes in height ratio, for the cases of
small space between the two buildings, magnitudes of mean
suctions on the windward face increase with the increase of
height ratio but those on the side faces and leeward face of
the principal building decrease. For the cases with large
space between the two buildings, mean pressure on the
windward face of the principal building decreases with the
increase of height ratio, but the magnitudes of mean suc-
tions on the side faces increase at first then decrease and
those on the leeward face decrease at first then increases.
Figure 16 only shows the mean wind pressure IF on the side
walls of the principal building interfered by another adja-
cent building in a tandem arrangement. Also results and
variation trends of fluctuating wind pressures have been
found, and accordingly the characteristics of fluctuating
pressure IF have also been recognized from the test data.
5 Equivalent static wind loads of tall buildings
and structures
The gust loading factor method (GLF method), which was
put forward by Davenport [3] for computing the wind-
2640 GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10
induced dynamic responses in alongwind, has been devel-
oped and applied in almost all the current standards of the
major countries. According to the gust loading factor meth-
od, the equivalent static wind load is equal to the mean wind
force multiplied by the gust loading factor, thus the distri-
bution of equivalent static wind load along the building
height obeys a 2 exponential law ( is the exponent of the
mean wind velocity profile), just as the mean wind force
does. However, it has been recognized that the resonant
equivalent static wind load can be represented by inertial
force of the building. The wind load by the GLF method is
evidently different from ( is the exposure of the first
mode of building) exponent resonant equivalent wind load.
On the other hand, both of the resonant and background
equivalent static wind load components provided by the
Chinese Loading Code (GBJ9-2001, hereafter referred to as
GBJ code method) are equal to the inertial wind force, and
thus obeys the exponential law.
5.1 Basic principle
The equivalent static wind load was separately evaluated as
mean, background and resonant components. The mean
component is very simple and will not be discussed here.
The background response and the equivalent static wind
load component was computed by the load response corre-
lation method (LRC method) [47], while the resonant
equivalent static wind load component was represented by
the inertial force.
5.2 Deviation factors of the load effects
Except for the mean wind load, the distributions of the
background and resonant equivalent wind load components
by the different methods are different from those of the ac-
tual ones.
Figure 17 shows the typical deviation factors of the res-
onant and background equivalent static wind load effects. It
can be seen from Figure 17 that the background deviation
factors of the GLF and GBJ methods are both sensitive to
the parameter
0
(i.e., the type of response), and the latter
lead to unsafe background responses. However, it seems
that the 2 exponent background equivalent wind load by
the GLF method is a fairly good approximation of the actual
response dependent background wind loads. The resonant
factor of the GLF method is also sensitive to parameter
0
.
Based on the above concept, theoretical studies have
been made on methods of equivalent static wind load with
high precision and convenience [5, 6, 7, 11, 15, 48, 49].
5.3 A approximation method for resonant equivalent
static wind load of complex structures
Multi mode contributions and their coupling effects may
required to be taken into account in computing the resonant
response and resonant equivalent static wind load com-
ponent for complex structures, such as complex tall TV
towers, especially large-span roof structures. A new cencept
of mode coupling factor for computation of coupling
effects between multi-mode resonant responses of the
structures was proposed. On the base of the mode coupling
factor, a modified SRSS method for computation of the
resonant response and resonant equivalent static wind load
component contributed by multi-modes and their coupling
effects of the structures was raised.
The PSD of i-th displacement response of the structure
can be written as follows,

*
1 1
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
j k
n n
ii ij j F F k ik
j k
S H i S H i e | e e e |
= =
=
__
. (23)
If the coupling effects between modes are ignored, the
precise method in eq. (24) degenerates into the SRSS
method, that is,

2 *
1
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
j j
n
ii ij j F F j
j
S H i S H i e | e e e
=
=
_
. (24)
If the real part and imaginary part in eq. (24) are notated
by Re[]

and Im[], respectively, eq. (24) can be re-written as
*
1 1
*
( ) {Re[ ( ) ( )]
Im[ ( ) ( )] }
j k
n n
ii ij ik j k
j k
j k F F
S H i H i
H i H i i S
e | | e e
e e
= =
=
+
__



Figure 17 Deviation factors of load effects. (a) Background load effects from GBJ; (b) resonant load effects, from GLF-I; (c) resonant load effects, from
GLF-II.
GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10 2641

*
1 1
*
1 1
Re[ ( ) ( )]
Im[ ( ) ( )] .
j k
j k
n n
ij ik j k F F
j k
n n
ij ik j k F F
j k
H i H i S
H i H i iS
| | e e
| | e e
= =
= =
=
+
__
__

(25)

Based on the decomposition equation of Re[H
*
j
(ie)
H
k
(ie)] proposed by Vanmarcke [50], a simplified method
for computation of resonant dynamic response with modal
coupling of structures under the action of turbulent wind
was derived as follows,

2
, ,
1
(1 )
n
R i R ji j
j
o o u
=
= +
_
, (26)
where

Re( ( )) Im( ( ))
( ) ( )
j k j k
j j j j
F F j F F j
ik
jk jk jk
ij F F j F F j
S S
N M
S S
e e

u
e e
(
( = +
(

, (27)
u
jk
is the modal coupling factor considering the k-th modal
coupling effect on the j-th resonant response. Similarly,
1
n
j jk
k
k j
u u
=
=
_
is the j-th modal coupling factor considering all
the modal coupling effect on the j-th resonant response. N
jk

and M
jk
are both relative to the structural frequency and
damping ratio.
Eq. (26) is simple and convenient for computation of
resonant dynamic responses of the structures with mode
coupling effects under actions of turbulent wind. The pre-
sent method is developed based on SRSS method and was
called the modified SRSS method (MSRSS). Accordingly, a
formula for resonant equivalent static wind load distribu-
tions with multi mode contributions and their coupling ef-
fects was proposed.
6 Practical applications
Our research team has finished wind-resistant studies on
dozens of tall buildings and structures. In this paper the
study on Guangzhou New TV Tower is introduced.
6.1 Tower model and test situation
The Guangzhou New TV Tower with a height of 610 m is
presently the tallest TV tower in the world. Its exterior ge-
ometry configuration is unique and very complicated, which
can be seen in Figure 18. The main tower body is a spatial
steel structure system. Twenty-four vertical steel pipes to-
gether with horizontal annular components and spiral
oblique rods compose the external frame. The cross-section
of the tower body is ellipse, being large at both ends and
small in the middle. The major axis and minor axis at tower
bottom are respectively 80 and 60 m, and these quantities at
the tower body top are 54 and 40.5 m. Five closed function-
al areas are unequally distributed on the tower body along
height.
Because of the special exterior geometry, it was impossi-
ble to measure the wind pressures on the entire tower
through the wind tunnel test of the full rigid tower model.
Moreover, it was also very difficult to measure the wind
forces on the tower by using high-frequency balance tech-
nique to the whole tower model since the tower structure
was too slender and the contribution of the high-order
modes must be taken into account for the computation of
dynamic responses. Thus a special experimental procedure
was adopted for the wind tunnel test.
According to the architectural characteristics, the main
tower and antenna were divided into 19 sections for exper-
iment as shown in Figure 18. The sectional models were
built as light but rigid as possible. The natural frequencies
of balance with most of the sectional models are greater
than 70 Hz.
Through analysis of site situation of the TV Tower, the
terrain category was classified as C according to the Build-
ing Structure Design Code of China (GB 50009-2001).
Since the entire tower was divided into 19 sections and each
section (especially the upper tower which influences the
overall wind force greatly) was not very high, the mean
wind speed and turbulence intensity vary little on each of
the section. Therefore it was reasonable to take the experi-
ment under the spatial homogeneous turbulence wind field
produced by passive grid turbulence generator. That is, the
mean wind speed and turbulence intensity did not vary
along height for each of the sectional model in the test,
while the mean wind profile would be considered when
calculating the wind forces acting on the real tower. Five
kinds of homogeneous turbulence wind fields with different
turbulence intensity were simulated corresponding to the
different heights of the tower sections, which were 10%,
11%, 12%, 14% and 18%. Furthermore, on account of high
turbulent intensities in oncoming wind and the complicated
flow situation caused by interference situation among the
structural members, the effect of Reynolds number was not
specially considered in the test.
For the tower body, not only the tested sectional model is
fixed on the balance, but also the other two sectional com-
pensation models with the same shapes as the just neigh-
bouring sectional models are mounted with small gaps be-
tween the tested model and the compensation models to
simulate the three-dimensional flow of prototype structure
as far as possible. The photographs of test model and instal-
lation are shown in Figure 19.
6.2 Wind forces from test
Mean and extreme (maximum and minimum) force coeffi-
cient distributions along the tower height as a function of
wind direction acting on all the sections were obtained from
2642 GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10

Figure 18 Sectional models of tower. (a) Main tower body; (b) antenna.

Figure 19 Photographs of sectional model of tower in wind tunnel.
the test. Figure 20 shows the mean, maximum and mini-
mum wind forces along the height of tower under wind
speed of 100 year return period (the wind speed at gradient
height is 52.4 m/s ) at typical wind directions.
6.3 Wind-induced responses and equivalent static wind
loads
In light of structure features and consulting with the Struc-
tural Design Code of China (GB 50009-2001), the parame-
ters used to calculate the wind-induced buffeting are: 1)
terrain category C; 2) reference wind pressure 0.55 kPa for
100 year return period and 0.26 kPa for 10 year return peri-
od; 3) structural damping ratio 1.5% for the main tower and
1.0% for the antenna; 4) mode number participating in vi-
bration 50.
Figure 21 shows the variation curves of displacements
(average, maximum and minimum responses) of antenna
top (elevation of +618.0 m) as a function of wind direction
(100 year return period). The displacement of the antenna
top is two times of that of the antenna bottom (elevation of
+454.0 m), indicating the obvious whipping effects of an-
tenna. The internal forces of tower are also been computed,
which have the similar trend to the displacements.
GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10 2643

Figure 20 Distributions of mean, maximum and minimum wind forces along the tower. (a) 0.00 degree wind direction, 100 year return period; (b) 90. 00
degree wind direction, 100 year return period.

Figure 21 Displacement of antenna top (average, maximum and minimum response) as a function of wind direction (100 year return period).
2644 GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10
The acceleration of antenna top is 36.4 times of that of
the antenna bottom, which indicates that the whipping of the
antenna has much more influence on the acceleration than
on the displacement. From the power spectrums of accelera-
tion it can be found that high-order modes contribute to the
acceleration responses in both X and Y directions. The first
and second modes make the major contributions to the ac-
celeration of antenna bottom, while much more modes have
contribution to the acceleration of antenna top.
Figure 22 gives the equivalent static wind loads for dy-
namic displacements of the tower. For the convenience of
design application, the equivalent static wind loads were
distributed to the external frame and internal core wall of
the TV Tower in the proportion of mass distribution. The
response distributions were calculated and are shown in
Figures 23 and 24. Furthermore, the RMS responses calcu-
lated by CQC method are also presented in Figures 23 and
24, which were regarded as the exact values. The compari-
son of the results obtained by the two methods indicates that
the equivalent static wind loads presented in this paper have
high precision and can be applicable for the structural de-
sign of the tower.


Figure 22 Equivalent static wind loads acting on the center of core tube (corresponding to RMS of displacement, 90 wind direction, 100 year return
period).

Figure 23 RMS displacement of structure (90 wind direction, 100 year return period).
GU Ming Sci China Tech Sci October (2010) Vol.53 No.10 2645

Figure 24 RMS internal force of structure (90 wind direction, 100 year return period).
7 Concluding remarks
This paper introduces wind-resistant studies of our research
team on tall buildings and structures, including some issues
of basic researches and applied researches. While dealing
with high-rise buildings over 1km in height, wind engineer-
ing researchers will be faced with more new challenges,
even problems currently not aware of. This needs more of
our endeavor to resolve engineering design problems, as
well as to further the development of wind engineering in
the meantime.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (Grant No. 90715040).
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