Multiobjective Equivalent Static Wind Loads on Complex Tall Buildings Using Non-Gaussian Peak Factors

Equivalent static wind loads (ESWLs) play an important role in the wind-resistant design of tall buildings. Traditionally, ESWLs of a tall building are derived based on the equivalence of the top deflection or the base force along the principal direction, which is easy to identify for a regular tall building. For flexible tall buildings with simple or complex shapes, wind-induced dynamic responses are three-dimensional, which often complicates the application of the ESWLs. Based on the time-domain dynamic analysis method, a new scheme is developed in this paper to model multiobjective equivalent static wind loads (M-ESWLs) on complex tall buildings. The possible non-Gaussian properties of wind-induced response processes have been taken into account in M-ESWLs by using non-Gaussian peak factors. Furthermore, a joint action reduction factor is carefully defined to reflect the partial correlations among multiple component responses. Finally, the new scheme is applied to a practical 43-story tall building with irregular geometric shapes to illustrate the application and effectiveness of the new method. In this work it was assumed that wind speeds do not depend on direction. Future research should include complementing this work by accounting for the effects of wind speed directionality. (C) 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.