High Rise Structures

A high-rise is a tall building or structure

Buildings between 75 feet and 491 feet (23 m to
150 m) high are considered high-rises. Buildings
taller than 492 feet (150 m) are classified as
skyscrapers.
The materials used for the structural system of
high-rise buildings are reinforced concrete and
steel. Most American style skyscrapers have a
steel frame, while residential tower blocks are
usually constructed out of concrete.
High-rise structures have certain features. The
structures are high & lead to higher vertical loads
and higher lateral loads (mainly due to wind stress)
in comparison with lower buildings.

LOADS ON THE HIGHRISE STRUCTURES

Vertical Loads
Dead loads arise from the weigh to the individual
construction elements and the finishing loads.
Live loads are dependent on use depending on the
number of stories; live loads can be reduced for
load transfer and the dimensioning of vertical loadbearing elements. However, the reduction of the
total live load on a construction element may not
exceed 40%.

Horizontal Loads
Calculation of lateral loads should be carefully
scrutinized.
It generally arises from unexpected deflections,
wind and earthquake loads

Unexpected Deflections
It arises from imprecision in the manufacture of
construction elements and larger components.
Another cause is the uneven settling of the
foundation at an in-homogeneous site.
Any deflection produces additional lateral forces.

Wind Loads
High-rise buildings are susceptible to oscillation. It
should not be viewed as statically equivalent loads,
but must be investigated under the aspect of sway
behaviour.
Wind tunnel experiments are used to see the
influence of the building?s shape on the wind load.
The ability of wind loads to bring a building to sway
must also be kept in mind. This oscillation leads both
to a perceptible lateral acceleration for occupants,

Earthquake Loads
Definition
Seismology (from the Greek seismos= earthquake
and logos= word)
scientific study of earthquakes
propagation of elastic waves through the Earth.
studies of earthquake effects, such as tsunamis
diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic,
oceanic, atmospheric, and artificial processes such as
explosions.

Earthquake
Produce different types of seismic waves.
It travel through rock, and provide an effective way to
image both sources and structures deep within the
Earth.

Seismic Waves
There are three basic types of seismic waves in solids:
P-waves
S-waves
P-and/or S-waves.
The two basic kinds of surface waves (Raleigh and
Love).
Pressure waves,/Primary waves /P-waves,
Travel at the greatest velocity within solids and are
therefore the first waves to appear on a seismogram.
P-waves are fundamentally pressure disturbances that
propagate through a material by alternately
compressing and expanding (dilating) the medium,
where particle motion is parallel to the direction of
wave propagation.

Shear waves/secondary waves/S-waves,

Transverse waves that travel more slowly than Pwaves and thus appear later than P-waves on a
seismogram.
Particle motion is perpendicular to the direction of
wave propagation. Shear waves do not exist in fluids
such as air or water.

Type of High-Rise Structure

Braced Frame
Rigid Frame Structure
Infilled Frame Structure
Flat Plate and Flat Slab Structure
Shear wall structure
Coupled wall structure
Wall-frame structure
Framed tube structure
The trussed tube
Tube in tube or Hull core structure
Bundled tube structure
Core and Outriggers system
Hybrid structure

Braced Frame

Braced frames are cantilevered vertical trusses

resisting laterals loads primarily through the axial
stiffness of the frame members.
The effectiveness of the system, as characterized by
a high ratio of stiffness to material quantity, is
recognized for multi-storey building in the low to mid
height range.
Generally regarded as an exclusively steel system
because the diagonal are inevitably subjected to
tension for or to the other directions of lateral loading.
Able to produce a laterally very stiff structure for a
minimum of additional material, makes it an
economical structural form for any height of buildings,
up to the very tallest.

Advantages:
Girders only participate minimally in the lateral bracing
action-Floor framing design is independent of its level in
the structure.
Can be repetitive up the height of the building with
obvious economy in design and fabrication.

Disadvantages:
Obstruct the internal planning and the locations of the
windows and doors; for this reason, braced bent are
usually incorporated internally along wall and partition
lines, especially around elevator, stair, and service shaft.
Diagonal connections are expensive to fabricate and
erect.

ACT Tower, Himatsu

Rigid Frame Structure

Consist of columns and girders joined by moment

resistant connections.
Lateral stiffness of a rigid frame bent depends on the
bending stiffness of the columns, girders, and
connection in the plane of the bents. Ideally suited for
reinforced concrete buildings because of the inherent
rigidity of reinforced concrete joints. Also used for
steel frame buildings, but moment-resistant
connections in steel tend to be costly.
While rigid frame of a typical scale that serve alone to
resist lateral loading have an economic height limit of
about 25 stories, smaller scale rigid frames in the for
of perimeter tube, or typically rigid frames in
combination with shear walls or braced bents, can be
economic up top much greater heights.

Advantages:
May be place in or around the core, on
the exterior, or throughout the interior of
the building with minimal constraint on
the planning module.
The frame may be architecturally
exposed to express the grid like nature of
the structure.
The spacing of the columns in a moment
resisting frame can match that required
for gravity framing.
Only suitable for building up to 20 30
storiesonly; member proportions and
materials cost become unreasonable for
building higher than that.

Fig. WTC OSAKA JAPAN

In-filled Frame
Structure

Most usual form of construction for

tall buildings up to 30 stories in
height Column and girder framing of
reinforced concrete, or sometimes
steel, is in-filled by panels of
brickwork, block work, or cast-inplace concrete. Because of the infilled serve also as external walls or
internal partitions, the system is an
economical way of stiffening and
strengthening the structure. The
complex interactive behaviour of the
infill in the frame, and the rather
random quality of masonry, has
made it difficult to predict with
accuracy the stiffness and strength
of an in-filled frame.

Flat-Plate and Flat Slab Structure

Is the simplest and most logical of all structural forms in

that it consists of uniforms slabs, connected rigidly to
supporting columns.
The system, which is essentially of reinforced concrete, is
very economical in having a flat soffit requiring the most
uncomplicated formwork and, because of the soffit can be
used as the ceiling, in creating a minimum possible floor
depth.
Lateral resistance depends on the flexural stiffness of the
components and their connections, with the slab
corresponding to the girder of the rigid frame.
Particularly appropriate for hotel and apartment
construction where ceiling space is not required and where
the slab may serve directly as the ceiling.
Economic for spans up to about 25 ft (8m),above which
drop panels can be added to create a flat-slab structure for
span of up to 38 ft (12m).
Suitable for building up to 25 stories height.

Shear Wall Structure

Concrete or masonry continuous vertical walls may

serve both architecturally partitions and structurally
to carry gravity and lateral loading.
Very high in plane stiffness and strength make
them ideally suited for bracing tall building Act as
vertical cantilevers in the form of separate planar
walls, and as non-planar assemblies of connected
walls around elevator, stair and service shaft. well
suited to hotel and residential buildings where the
floor-by floor repetitive planning allow the walls to
be vertically continuous and where they serve
simultaneously as excellent acoustic and fire
insulators between rooms and apartments.

Minimum shrinkage restraint reinforcement where the wall

stresses are low, which can be for a substantial portion of the
wall.
Tensile reinforcement for areas where tension stresses occur
in walls when wind uplifts stresses exceeds gravity stresses.
Compressive reinforcement with confinement ties where
high compressive forces require the walls is designed as
columns. Individual shear walls, say at the edge of a tall
building, are design as blade walls or as columns resisting
shear and bending as required.
High strength concrete has enable wall thickness to be
minimized, hence maximizing rentable floor space.
Technology exists to pump and to place high-strength
concrete at high elevation.
Fire rating for service and passenger elevator shafts is
achieved by simply placing concrete of a determined
thickness.
The need for complex bolted or side-welded steel
connections is avoided.
Well detail reinforce concrete will develop about twice as
much damping as structural steel. This advantage where

Problem associated with

formwork systems:
A significant time lag will occur
between footing construction and
wall construction, because of the
fabrication and erection on site of
the moving formwork systems
Time will be lost at the levels where
wall are terminated or decrease in
thickness, alignment of the shear
walls are within tolerance.
Regular survey check must be
undertaken to ensure that the
vertical and twist alignment of the
shear walls are within tolerance.
In general it is difficult to achieve a
good finish from slip-form formwork
systems, and hence rendering or
some other type of finishing may be

Coupled Wall Structure

Consist of two or more shear walls in the same plan, or

almost the same plan, connected at the floor levels by beam
or stiff slabs.
The effect of the shear-resistant connecting members is to
cause the sets of wall to behave in their partly as a composite
cantilever, bending about the common centroidal axis of the
walls.
Suited for residential construction where lateral-load
resistant cross walls, which separate the apartments, consist
of in-plane coupled pairs, or trios, of shear walls between
which there are corridor or window openings. Besides using
concrete construction, it occasionally been constructed of
heavy steel plate, in the style of massive vertical plate or box
girders, as part of steel frame structure.

Wall-Frame Structure

The walls and frame interact horizontally,

especially at the top, to produce stiffer and
stronger structure. The interacting wall-frame
combination is appropriate for the building in
the 40 60 story range, well beyond that of
rigid frames or shear walls alone.
Carefully tuned structure, the shear of the
frame can be made approximately uniform
over the height, allowing the floor framing to
be repetitive. Although the wall-frame
structure is usually perceived as a concrete
structural form, with shear wall and concrete
frames, a steel counterpart using braced
frames and steel rigid frames offers similar
benefits of horizontal interaction.
The braced frames behave with an overall
flexural tendency to interact with the shear
mode of the rigid frames.

The Trussed tube

The trussed tube system represents a classic

solution for a tube uniquely suited to the
qualities and character of structural steel.
Interconnect all exterior columns to form a rigid
box, which can resist lateral shears by axial in its
members rather than through flexure.
Introducing a minimum number of diagonals on
each faade and making the diagonal intersect
at the same point at the corner column.
The system is tubular in that the fascia
diagonals not only form a truss in the plane, but
also interact with the trusses on the
perpendicular faces to affect the tubular
behaviour. This creates the x form between
corner columns on each faade.
Relatively broad column spacing can resulted
large clear spaces for windows, a particular
characteristic of steel buildings.
The faade digitalisation serves to equalize the
gravity loads of the exterior columns that give a

Tube-in-Tube or Hull Core

Structure

This variation of the framed tube consists

of an outer frame tube, the Hull,
together with an internal elevator and
service core.
The Hull and core act jointly in resisting
both gravity and lateral loading.
The outer framed tube and the inner core
interact horizontally as the shear and
flexural components of a wall-frame
structure, with the benefit of increased
lateral stiffness.
The structural tube usually adopts a
highly dominant role because of its much
greater structural depth.

Bundled-Tube structures

The concept allows for wider column spacing in the tubular walls
than would be possible with only the exterior frame tube form.
The spacing which make it possible to place interior frame lines
without seriously compromising interior space planning.
The ability to modulate the cells vertically can create a powerful
vocabulary for a variety of dynamic shapes therefore offers great
latitude in architectural planning of a tall building.

Core and Outrigger Systems

Outrigger serve to reduce the overturning moment in

the core that would otherwise act as a pure
cantilever, and to transfer the reduced moment to
columns outside the core by the way of tensioncompression coupled, which take advantage of the
increase moment arm between these columns.
It also serves to reduce the critical connection where
the mast is stepped to the keel beam.
In high-rise building this same benefit is realized by
a reduction of the base core over-turning moments
and the associated reduction in the potential core
uplift forces.

In the foundations system, this core and outrigger

system can lead to the need for the following:
The addition of expensive and labour-intensive rock
anchors to an otherwise simple foundation
alternative such as spread footing.
Greatly enlarged mat dimensions and depth solely to
resist overturning forces.
Time-consuming and costly rock sockets for caisson
systems along with the need to develop reinforcement
throughout the complete caisson depth.
Expensive and intensive field work connection at the
interface between core and the foundation. This
connection can become particularly troublesome when
one considers the difference in construction tolerances
between foundations and core structure.
The elimination from consideration of foundation
systems which might have been nsiderably less

Advantages:
The outrigger systems may be formed in any combination of
steel, concrete, or composite construction.
Core overturning moments and their associated induced
deformation can be reduced through the reverse moment
applied to the core at each outrigger intersection. This moment is
created by the force couple at the exterior columns to which the
outrigger connect. It can potentially increase the effective depth
of the structural system from the core only to almost the
complete building.
Significant reduction and possibly the complete elimination of
uplift and net tension forces throughout the column and the
foundation systems.
The exterior column spacing is not driven by structural
considerations and can easily mesh with aesthetic and functional
considerations.
Exterior framing can consist of simple beam and column
framing without the need for rigid-frame-type connections,
resulting in economies.
For rectangular buildings, outriggers can engage the middle
columns on the long faces of the building under the application of

Disadvantages
The most significant drawback with use of outrigger systems is
their potential interference with occupiable and rentable space.
This obstacle can be minimized or in some cases eliminate by
incorporation of any of the following approaches:
Locating outrigger in mechanical and interstitial levels
Locating outriggers in the natural sloping lines of the building
profile
Incorporating multilevel single diagonal outriggers to minimize
the member?s interference on any single level.
Skewing and offsetting outriggers in order to mesh with the
functional layout of the floor space.
Another potential drawback is the impact the outrigger
installation can have on the erection process. As a typical building
erection proceeds, the repetitive nature of the structural framing
and the reduction in member sizes generally result in a learning
curve which can speed the process along.

Hybrid Structure

Combination of two or even more of basic structural forms

either by direct combination or by adopting different forms in
different parts of the structure. This systems provide in-plane
stiffness, its lack of Torsional stiffness requires that additional
measures be taken, which resulted in one bay vertical exterior
bracing and a number of level of perimeter Vierendeel
bandages perhaps one of the best examples of the art of
structural engineering. Hybrid structures are likely to be the
rule rather than the exception for future very tall buildings,
whether to create acceptable dynamic characteristics or to
accommodate the complex shapes demanded by modern
architecture. High-strength concrete, consist of stiffness and
damping capabilities of large concrete elements are combined
with the lightness and constructability of steel frame exhibits
significantly lower creep and shrinkage and is therefore more
readily accommodated in a hybrid frame.