Dynamic torsional behavior of tall building under wind loads

using CFD approach

*Cuong K. Nguyen a, Tuan D. Ngo a, Priyan A. Mendis a, John C.K. Cheung b,c
a

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Australia

b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia
c
MEL Consultants Pty Ltd, 17 Kingston Street, East Malvern, Victoria 3145, Australia

ABSTRACT: The dynamic torsional behavior of rectangular tall buildings under wind loads has
been investigated using wind tunnel tests. It has been found that one of the main factors
influencing the dynamic torsional behavior of tall buildings is the dynamic characteristics of the
wind such as turbulence and wake excitation. In addition to that, the dynamic characteristics of
the building itself influence the torsional behavior. The Ansys CFX10 has been used to analyze
the flow over building model with the wind speed profile and turbulence profile generated from
AS 1170.2 for the suburban terrain category. Different aspect ratios of rectangular tall buildings
have been studies from square to slab type structure. The dynamic torsional moment has been
analyzed from pressure distribution on surrounding surfaces of the rigid models of tall buildings.
The torsional moments are normalized in coefficient form with the maximum projected width
and the maximum projected area of the building. The numerical results are being comparable
with the experimental results from Cheung and Melbourne [4, 5].
KEYWORDS: Dynamic Torsional Tall building Wind loads CFD.
1 INTRODUCTION
Dynamic torsional responses of tall buildings subjected to wind loads are caused by several
sources such as building shape, aspect ratio, interference of the nearby buildings, and the
dynamic effects of wind loads as well as the dynamic characteristics of the buildings. The
asymmetric wind pressure distribution on the surrounding surfaces of the building model is the
most common source of wind exited torsional moments about the vertical axis of the building.
In terms of building cross sectional shape, studies by Cheung and Melbourne [4, 5] and Beneke
and Kwok [1] found that the triangular-shape model produced a dynamic torsional response far
greater than that of any other shapes. The experimental formulae to calculate torsional moment
coefficient C M of tall buildings under wind loads were first proposed by Kareem [6], and then by
Z

Lythe and Surry [8], Cheung and Melbourne [4, 5], and Liang et al. [7]. Using experimental
results from wind tunnel tests, which were carried out in a 1/400 scale model of the natural wind
generated by flow over roughness elements, Cheung and Melbourne [4, 5] normalized the
measured torsional moments in coefficient forms as follows:
Mz
(1)
Mean torsional moment coefficient
C =
Mz

Standard deviation torsional moment coefficient

405

1
Vh2 b 2max h
2

C M z =

Mz

1
Vh2 b 2max h
2

(2)

b min
(3)
b max
where bmin is minimum projected width of building platform; bmax is maximum projected width of
building planform, Vh is average velocity of the wind at the height h of the building, is air density.

The building planform shape aspect ratio

f=

The torsional moments were found to be varied with wind direction and results from Cheung and
Melbourne [4, 5] showed that the highest mean and standard deviation torsional moments for
various building models generally occurred at wind direction about 5 or 70 from the normal of
the widest building face. The values of C MZ were found to be approximately constant with the
reduced velocity and increased for triangular buildings, but decreased for rectangular buildings.
Based on the draft of ISO/CD 4354 [2], Tamura et al. [10] proposed the formula for standard
deviation coefficient of torsional moments as follow:
C

MZ

d
= 0.0034 + 0.0078

0.78

(4)

where b is the horizontal breadth of the structure normal to the wind direction and d is the
horizontal depth of the structure parallel to the wind direction.
With the rapid development in computational fluid dynamic (CFD) techniques and computer
hardware, there are a number of flow turbulence models, which can produce reasonably good
results within an acceptable accuracy and running time. Yu and Kareem [11] studied the flow
around rectangular prisms with different aspect ratios at a Reynolds number of 105 using LES
simulation, which is solved using finite volume method. The numerical results of the overall lift
and drag forces and Strouhal number were found to be in good agreement with the available
experimental values. By reviewing a number of previous computed cases for aeroelastic
behaviors of cylinder-type structures using CFD techniques, Tamura [9] concluded that the
reliability of CFD estimation is sufficient for wind-interaction problems in comparison with the
experimental data and useful information can be obtained by using CFD techniques.
This paper present the results of CFD based virtual wind tunnel testing for rectangular building
models. The torsional moments of the building about the vertical axis of the building have been
estimated based on pressure distribution on the surrounding surfaces of the building models and
then normalized to torsional moment coefficient using equation (1). The results from CFD
models are being compared with the experimental results from previous studies.
2 COMPUTATIONAL SIMULATION
The selected rectangular building models in this study have the same height of 75cm, and the
same width of 10cm, but the depths are varied (10cm, 30cm, and 100cm). The height of the
virtual wind tunnel is selected as 160cm and the width is chosen with the criteria that minimize
CFD domain but ensure the blockage ratio is less than 5%. The scale of the building models is
1/400 with the highest wind velocity 10m/s at the gradient height, which becomes 125cm in this
scaled model. The building models are placed 50cm from the inlet in order to allow the flow
fully developed before approaching surfaces of the building models, which have boundary
condition as non-slip wall. Position of the outlet is placed further down stream to make sure that

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the vortex shedding of the flow is fully developed behind the building models with the boundary
condition as zero static pressure. The boundary condition at the inlet is set with velocity profile
and turbulence intensity profile for the suburban terrain category as defined in AS1170.2. The
model arrangement (elevation and plan) and sizes of the domains are presented in Figure 1.

Model 1: Square model

Model 2: 1:3 Rectangular model

Figure 1. Model arrangement.

Model 3: 1:10 Rectangular model

The wind direction is taken as 70 from the normal of the widest surface as recommended from
the physical wind tunnel studies to obtain the maximum torsional moment. Hexahedral element
has been used in this study since it can give more correct results than any other types of element
available in CFD. The meshes are refined at the edges of the building models in order to capture
the separation phenomenon of the flow, minimum size of the element in the domains is 3mm.
Meshing grid on the surfaces of the building models are shown in Figure 2.

Meshing grid - enlargement

Meshing grid on the surfaces

Figure 2. Meshing grid on the surfaces of the building models

Ansys CFX 10 code has been used in this study with transient simulation using Detached Eddy
Simulation (DES) for turbulence modeling. The fluid is air at 25C and a steady state simulation
with SST turbulence modeling has been carried out to establish the physical characteristics of the
flow before running transient simulation of each model. Time step was set to 0.0005 second and
the results were statistically calculated after 500 steps and the simulation was stopped at step
2000 (equivalent to 1 second duration). The CFD models were solved in Pentium 4PC, with
3.4Ghz microprocessor and 2 Gb RAM. The simulation parameters and running time are shown
in Table 1.
Table 1. Simulation parameters of CFD based virtual wind tunnel
Model No.
1
2
3

Description
Square model
10x10x75 cm
1:3 Rec. model
10x30x75 cm
1:10 Rec. model
10x100x75cm

Type of element
Hexahedral
Hexahedral
Hexahedral

Number of nodes and elements

# Nodes:
290334
# Elements:
277304
# Nodes:
336060
# Elements:
321500
# Nodes:
364036
# Elements:
348260

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Running time
2 day 2 hours and 37
minutes
2 day 11 hours and
23 minutes
2 day 16 hours and
19 minutes

3 COMPUTATIONAL RESULTS AND COMPARISION

The building models were assumed to have shear stress center coincided with the geometrical
center of the cross section. The averaged total pressure distributed on the building surfaces was
exported for each grid node and the wind force was calculated by multiplying the projected area
around a grid point with the pressure value at that point. The torsional moment was then
estimated by multiplying the above mentioned wind force with the moment arm, which is the
distance from the grid point to the shear stress center. Table 2 show the comparison torsional
moment coefficient obtained from CFD results and the experimental one.
Table 2. Mean torsional moment coefficients
Model No.
1
2
3

d/b
1
2.077
3.683

f
0.7071
0.3162
0.0995

Cheung & Melbourne results

0.0363
0.1051
0.1095

CFD results
0.0219
0.0926
0.0944

4 DISCUSSTION AND CONCLUSIONS

The dynamic torsional moment of a tall building under wind load has been found to be
significant from model study in physical wind tunnels. Results from CFD based virtual wind
tunnel for 1:3 and 1:10 rectangular models are comparable to the experimental data except the
square planform where CFD simulation gives significant smaller result. The reason for that is the
difference in flow condition (wind velocity turbulence profiles). Advantage of CFD simulation is
that it can model a given flow profile exactly but the mesh size and quality of the mesh are the
most effective parameter of the simulation to the result. Further simulations with different
building planform and fine mesh sizes will be carried out to improve the CFD results.
5 REFERENCES
1. Beneke, D. L., and Kwok, K. C. S., Aerodynamic effect of wind induced torsion on tall buildings, Journal of
Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 50 (1993), pp. 271-280.
2. Committee Draft ISO/CD 4354 Reference No. ISO/TC 98/SC 3, pp.47
3 Menter F., ANSYS CFX 10.0, Introduction to Turbulence Modeling, Training Manual, Leap Australia Pty Ltd.,
February, 2006.
4 Cheung J.C.K., Melbourne W.H., Torsional Moments of Tall Buildings, Journal of Wind Engineering and
Industrial Aerodynamics 41-44 (1992), pp. 1125-1126.
5 Cheung J.C.K., Melbourne W.H., Torsional Moments of Tall Buildings with various Planform Shapes, 12th
Australian Wind Engineering Society Workshop, Queenstown, February 2006.
6. Kareem A., Wind induced torsional loads on structures, Engineering Structures 3 (1981), pp. 85-86.
7. Liang, S., Liu, S., Zhang, L., Gu, M., and Li, Q. S., Torsional dynamic wind loads on rectangular tall buildings,
Engineering Structures 26 (2004), pp. 129-137.
8. Lythe, G. R., and Surry, D., Wind-Induced Torsional Loads on Tall Buildings, Journal of Wind Engineering and
Industrial Aerodynamics 36 (1990), pp. 225-234.
9. Tamura T., Reliability on CFD estimation for wind-structure interaction problems, Journal of Wind Engineering
and Industrial Aerodynamics 81 (1999), pp. 117-143.
10. Tamura Y., Kawai H., Uematsu Y., Marukawa H., Fuji K. and Taniike Y. (1996) Wind load and wind-induced
response estimations in the Recommendations for Loads on Buildings, AIJ 1993, Engineering Structures, Vol.
18, No. 6, pp. 399-411.
11. Yu D., Kareem A., Parametric study of flow around rectangular prisms using LES, Journal of Wind Engineering
and Industrial Aerodynamics 77-78 (1998), pp. 653-662.

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