The design of tall and irregularly shaped buildings becomes more and more usual. A profound understanding of the force transfer and the serviceability conditions in these types of structures is needed. The considered buildings have a building plan that is not constant along the height and the effects of the in-plane floor stiffnesses coupling the stability elements and the influence of the torsional rigidity are studied. The design has to ensure adequate reliability but it also has to ensure that people in the building feel comfortable because wind-induced vibrations might cause discomfort.
In this dissertation a new method is developed for the design of irregularly shaped tall buildings under wind load. The structures are subdivided in only a very small number of super elements. The structural properties of these super elements are derived on the basis of the closed-form solutions of the governing systems of differential equations. By this, good insight is obtained in the internal force flow. The method can take into account the stochastic character of the wind load and both a resistance and a comfort check at any location in the building can be performed.
A computer program ICAROS has been developed for the design of high-rise buildings: Integrated Closed-form Analysis of high-Rise buildings On the basis of Super elements