A NEW FORCE BALANCE DATA-ANALYSIS METHOD FOR WIND RESPONSE PREDICTIONS OF TALL BUILDINGS

The theory currently used to predict the wind-induced response of buildings from force balance measurements is briefly reviewed. For buildings with coupled 3-D mode shapes, sources of uncertainty in the technique's response predictions are not just from errors in the mode shape corrections, but also from limitations in not being able to allow for coupled terms and higher mode effects. A new force balance data analysis technique which is designed to overcome these limitations is described. The new method eliminates the need to guess mode shape correction factors for buildings with non-linear sway and non-uniform torsional mode shapes. The reliability and accuracy of this method has been examined and validated analytically and experimentally to date. Some results of the analytical studies are presented here which demonstrate the power of the new method. It is believed that the new method will become the standard force balance data analysis method of tomorrow.