Comparative study of earthquake effects on the Canton Tower based on full-scale measurements

From 2011 to 2023, the monitoring system of a super high-rise structure, the Canton Tower, recorded many earthquakes. This study categorizes 11 earthquakes over these 13 years based on the distances between the epicenters and the tower for investigation. Firstly, the acceleration time histories and frequency spectra of these earthquakes are compared. Secondly, different system identification techniques, i.e., automated frequency domain decomposition (AFDD) and covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification (SSI-COV), are applied to the acceleration records to study the dynamic characteristics of the tower under earthquakes. Thirdly, three timedomain indexes based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) are proposed to measure and compare the impact of these earthquakes on the tower. The proposed indexes show good performance in assessing the impact of earthquakes and the structural condition. This study on the dynamic characteristics of Canton Tower under earthquakes at different distances can serve as a benchmark for further structural health monitoring and structural dynamic analysis.