Essay on Design of High-Rise Buildings for Multi-Hazard

The Wind and seismic hazards can cause catastrophic damage to buildings and infrastructures. The two hazards have accompanied weak and old buildings pose a possible for destruction and loss of life and property. The leading natural disasters are land and hurricane that has led to losing of properties in the recent past (Chen, 2012). However, the increase in population and the economic development have drastically increased the potential of exposure to some of these hazards. Thrilling wind events compete with earthquakes as a leading environmental design loading for structures. The two have led to the loss of life and properties though earthquakes have occurred less over the past years as compared to windstorms. At the moment, the designers of high-rise building have focused on coming up with strategies that aim at mitigating such hazard. But, the strategies treat earthquakes and hurricanes as completely independent something that does not prevent the exposure these structures to both hazards. Consequently, it is vital to understand the behavior of these structures under multi-hazard loadings while coming up with such strategies. To understand the fundamental differences between wind and earthquake demand, it is essential to explore the effects of wind and earthquake.

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The Wind is beneficial when it comes to the generation of power and pollution dispersion. However, the wind can be destructive especially if they are strong and extreme as they cause devastating effects on infrastructures. For instance, in the high-rise building, when strong winds blow, the dynamic and the cladding loads of the structures becomes a major issue since this building are raised higher hence wind-sensitive. The low-rise building are also not left behind as strong and extreme winds can damage to windows or the wooden made building can drastically collapse. In structural design, the lateral wind load that is imposed on the high-raise building is the vital factor. When designers were coming up with various plans for high buildings, it was unavoidable that the structure response to wind will be a major concern and there was a need to carry out an early experiment on both tunnels and in full-scale. Designers depends on the loads, and the linked responses of structures are the governing factors when designing steel framing system of many tall buildings. Also, the load of the wind remains a vital factor while establishing the structure of any tall building (Aly & Abburu, 2015).

There are some factors that wind loading depends on such as the speed of the wind, velocity of the wind, the aerodynamic shape of the structure and characteristics of structures that might amplify the wind loads at resonance. The flow pattern of that is generated by the building as a result of the surrounding is a major concern, not only the approaching wind. As such, when the flow of the wind is distorted, there is a capability of large wind pressure fluctuation that can be experienced at the surface of the building. This result to the imposition of the major aerodynamic loads on the structural system and extremely localized variation acts on the facade of such buildings.

Earthquakes are natural calamities that have caused major problems to engineers while designing tall buildings. Engineers come up with the building code to meet the requirements of the predictable motions at a particular location that are available as per hazard map. While researcher depends on the structure of the building while mitigating the risks posed by the wind, this is different while drafting building codes there are a lot of factors that need to be considered while reducing risks posed by earthquakes as compared to the wind. For example, designers look at the site conditions, the frequency from shaking, the predictable shaking intensity and the earthquake history (Aly & Abburu, 2015). The mitigation can be done even before the construction takes place as compared to winds whereby the structural design plays an essential role. Earthquakes are intense and coming up with a structure that will survive in the event of high magnitude earthquakes is not easy. As such, hazard maps should be used to mitigate risk prior construction of some major structures (Murty et al. 2012)

Engineers should also not only focus on the structures that are both wind and earthquake resistance but should focus on protection of workers a lot of people have lost their lives during the construction of tall buildings. The fall protection system for a high-rise that was developed in 2006 aimed at preventing reducing fatal accidents during the construction of tall buildings (Cecen & Sertyesilisik, 2013).

Conclusively, there is a need to understand further the effect of multi-hazard loading that is brought about by both earthquakes and wind regarding high rise building. Wind is somehow manageable as compared to earthquakes is such a way that, engineers can still raise a structure and design it in such a way that it cannot that the effects of extreme winds on building are drastically reduced, for example, designing of high, slender building in moderate earthquake loads is one strategy of mitigating such effects (Zhou & Xu, 2007). However, the problem lies with the dangers that the earthquakes bring. The only solution is to avoid constructing a structure in areas that are prone to earthquakes.

References

Aly, A. M., & Abburu, S. (2015). On the design of high-rise buildings for multihazard: fundamental differences between wind and earthquake demand. Shock and Vibration, 2015.

Cecen, H., & Sertyesilisik, B. (2013). A fall protection system for High-rise construction. Journal of Engineering, 2013.

Chen, E. Y. (2012). Multi-hazard design of mid-to high-rise structures (Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).

Murty, C. V. R., Goswami, R., Vijayanarayanan, A. R., & Mehta, V. (2012). Earthquake Behaviour of Buildings. Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority, Gandhinagar, 53-79.

Zhou, X., & Xu, Y. L. (2007). Multi-hazard performance assessment of a transfer-plate high-rise building. Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, 6(4), 371-382.