Structural Responses of a Supertall Building Subjected to a Severe Typhoon at Landfall

Abstract

Typhoon Mangkhut (1822) was one of the strongest tropical cyclones that ever impacted the south coast of China in past decades. During the passage of this typhoon, the structural health monitoring (SHM) system installed on a 303 m high building in this region worked effectively, and high-quality field measurements at nine height levels of the building were collected successfully, which provides a valuable opportunity to explore the dynamic properties of the building and the associated wind effects. In this study, the typhoon wind characteristics are presented first based on in-situ measurements at two sites. Acceleration responses of the building is then investigated, and the building’s serviceability is assessed against several comfort criteria. This study further focuses on the identification of modal parameters (i.e., natural frequency, damping ratio, and modal shape) via two methods: stochastic subspace identification (SSI) method and a method based on combined use of spectral analysis and random decrement technique (RDT). The good agreement between the two results demonstrates the effectiveness and the accuracy of the adopted methods. The obtained results are further compared with the stipulations in several technical codes as well as simulation results via finite element method to examine their performances in this real case. The amplitude dependence of natural frequencies and damping ratios of the studied building are also stressed.