ABSTRACT
Simple quasi-static treatment of wind loading, which is universally applied to design of typical low to mediumrise structures, can be unacceptably conservative for design of very tall buildings (Mendis, P. et al. 2007). On the other hand such simple treatment can easily lead to erroneous results and under-estimations. More importantly such a simplified treatment for deriving lateral loads does not address key design issues including dynamic response (effects of resonance, acceleration, damping, structural stiffness), interference from other structures, wind directionality, and cross wind response, which are all important factors in wind design of tall buildings. This paper provides an outline of advanced levels of wind design, in the context of the Eurocode. There is considered a number of key factors associated with the design of tall buildings to the effects of wind loading. Over the last few decades, our understanding of wind-structure interactions and resulting load effects has significantly improved, yet a need remains for further examination of a host of issues. Many of the studies encompassing analysis and modeling of wind effects on structures have tacitly assumed that the involved random processes are Gaussian.This assumption has been invoked primarily for the convenience in analysis, since information concerning statistics of Gaussian processes is abundant. This assumption is quite valid for loads that involve integral effects of the random pressure field over large areas.
