Tall buildings: secondary effects on the structural behaviour

Abstract

Tall buildings are designed taking into account several factors, such as the region, the employed material, the total height and, clearly, the requirements of the patrons. Nevertheless, the choice is also dictated by the need to define the best resistant contribution to the horizontal actions of wind and earthquakes. From this perspective, each typology is characterised by peculiar effects, which are hardly predictable in the absence of adequate methods of analysis. To this end, the aim of the present work is to highlight some less known effects that arise in the most common structural configurations employed to stiffen a high-rise construction. In particular, the result of the combination of different resistant solutions is examined in depth, with specific attention to the following cases: shear wall–frame interaction; in-parallel bracings with different total heights; the combination of variable section elements characterised by different laws of variation; and general stiffening of thin-walled open-section shear walls coming from rigid floor elements. The added value of the work is, therefore, the analysis of specific effects that are usually secondary during the design of the most common structural solutions employed in tall structures.