Spectral characteristics and correlation of dynamic wind forces on a super‐tall building

The 88-storey Jin Mao Building located in Shanghai has a height of 420·5m and is the highest building in mainland China. Dynamic wind force components on the super-tall building were measured by high-frequency force balance technique in a boundary layer wind tunnel for the cases of an isolated Jin Mao Building and the existing surrounding condition under suburban and urban boundary layer flow configurations. Spectral characteristics of along-wind and across-wind components and, in particular, the cross-correlation and coherence among various wind loading components are presented and discussed in detail. Furthermore, the effects of upstream terrain conditions and surrounding buildings on the spectra, cross-correlation and coherence are investigated. The experimental results show that such effects are significant. Finally, an empirical formula for estimation of the across-wind overturning moment spectrum for the super-tall building is presented. Comparisons of the spectra determined by the proposed formula and those obtained from wind tunnel tests are made to examine the applicability of the proposed formula. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.