Studies on wind environment around high buildings in urban areas

High buildings or architectural complex in urban areas remarkably distort the urban surface wind fields. As the air flow approaches,local strong wind may appear around the buildings. The strong wind makes the pedestrians on sidewalks, entrances and terrace very uncomfortable and causes the pedestrian level wind environment problem. In this studies, hot-wire wind measurement, wind scouring in wind tunnel and numerical computation were carried out to evaluate the wind environment of tall buildings in the prevailing flow conditions in Beijing areas. The results obtained by three techniques were compared and mutually verified. The conclusions drawn from three approaches agree with each other. Also the advantages and limitations of each method were analyzed. It is suggested that the combination of different techniques may produce better assessment of wind environment around high buildings.     

线图形简化与移位算子的协同方法

在地图综合过程中,线的图形简化和移位算子通常是分别执行的,图形简化和移位有时都会产生新的空间冲突。本文试图把这两种算子进行协同,避免在地图综合过程中进行空间冲突的多次探测,提高地图综合数据处理的效率。本文通过把线图形简化转换为线上的点移位,并构建邻近地图目标之间的移位传播路径,在考虑空间上下文关系和地图感受规则的前提下,使移位过程能考虑到线图形简化,并尽量保持有关地图目标的空间特征。最后,以道路和其周边的建筑物群为例,验证了该算法的有效性和可行性。     

一种新的窗户特征提取方法研究

在建筑物立面重建中,窗户提取、结构识别是学者们研究的热点。针对建筑物特征提取的应用需求,文中提出一种基于局部搜索算法——爬山法的窗户信息提取方法,介绍研究中采用的一些原理、方法,从而可以准确有效地从激光扫描数据中提取出建筑物的窗户信息。利用本方案对地面激光扫描系统获取的建筑物实验数据进行具体的处理,并给出可视化表达结果。     

ANALYTICAL AND FIELD EVIDENCE OF THE DAMAGING EFFECT OF VERTICAL EARTHQUAKE GROUND MOTION

The paper is an attempt to collate field evidence and results from dynamic analysis on possible structural effects of strong vertical ground motion. Observational evidence from three earthquakes are presented and assessed with regard to failure modes of buildings and bridges attributable to high vertical earthquake forces. Analytical results from previous studies for the same structural types are reviewed. These collectively confirm that structural failure may ensue due to direct tension or compression as well as due to the effect of vertical motion on shear and flexural response.     

Geographies of energy transition: the case of high-performing commercial office space in the central business districts of Sydney and Melbourne,Australia

As a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement, Australia committed to reduce emissions significantly by 2030. In a country highly urbanised and dependent on fossil fuels as its primary energy source, one key avenue for meeting these commitments is energy transition in the built environment. Australia has emerged as a leader in the design and construction of high-performance buildings in the premium commercial office sector. In this paper, we address a significant gap in understanding the diverse mechanisms through which building energy transition is being constituted in this sector, focusing on Sydney and Melbourne. In the absence of substantive publicly available data, we draw on mixed methods comprising a database developed around high-performing CBD office buildings and qualitative interviews with a range of sectoral stakeholders. We characterise the building stock in each city, and document five trends constituting energy transitions. We demonstrate that building energy transitions are not only shaped purposefully by dominant governance regimes but also by opportunistic responses to specific material and commercial conditions and legacies in each city. Thus the urban built environment affords significant opportunity for energy transitions, but pathways towards such transitions are necessarily multiple and ultimately shaped by material as well as institutional geographies.     

An improved building detection approach using L-band POLSAR two-dimensional time-frequency decomposition over oriented built-up areas

The objective of this study is to efficiently extract detailed information about various man-made targets in oriented built-up areas using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (POLSAR) images. This paper develops an improved approach for building detection by utilizing Two-Dimensional Time-Frequency (2-D TF) decomposition. This method performs outstandingly in distinguishing between man-made and natural targets based on the isotropic behaviors, frequency-sensitive responses, and scattering mechanisms of objects. The proposed method can preserve the spatial resolution and exploit the advantages of TF decomposition; specifically, the exact outlines of buildings can be effectively located, and more types of features (e.g., flat roofs, roads, and walls that are oblique to the radar illumination) can be distinguished from forests in complex built-up areas by 2-D TF decomposition. The coarser-resolution subaperture images that are produced in the azimuth direction, which correspond to different looking angles, are beneficial for detecting man-made structures with main scattering centers oriented at oblique angles with respect to the radar illumination. In the range direction, the obtained subaperture images, which correspond to various observation frequencies, can be helpful in distinguishing flat roofs and roads from forests. This method was successfully implemented to analyze both NASA/JPL L-band AIRSAR and L-band EMISAR data sets. The building detection results of the proposed method exhibit a significant improvement over those of other methods and reach an overall accuracy over 80%, with approximately 20% higher than the accuracies of K-means clustering and the entropy/alpha-Wishart classifier and approximately 10% higher than the accuracy of the support vector machine method. Moreover, building details can be precisely detected, obliquely oriented buildings can be identified, and the distinction between buildings and forests is significantly improved, as both visually and statistically indicated. This method is highly adaptable and has substantial application value.     

An answer to an important controversy and the need for caution when using simple models to predict inelastic earthquake response of buildings with torsion

This paper presents evidence that the extension of conclusions based on the widely used simplified, one story, eccentric systems of the shear‐beam type, to actual, nonsymmetric buildings and consequent assessments of the pertinent code provisions, can be quite erroneous, unless special care is taken to match the basic properties of the simplified models to those of the real buildings. The evidence comes from comparisons of results obtained using three variants of simplified models, with results from the inelastic dynamic response of three‐ and five‐story eccentric buildings computed with detailed MDOF systems, where the members are idealized with the well‐known plastic hinge model. In addition, a convincing answer is provided on a pertinent hanging controversy: For frame‐type buildings, designed in accordance with the dynamic provisions of modern codes (such as EC8 or IBC2000), which allow reduced shears at the stiff edge due to torsion, the frames at the flexible sides are the critical elements in terms of ductility demands. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of local geological conditions on the macroseismic effects in the town of Strazhitza

Damage caused by the earthquake of 7 December 1986 (M = 5.7) and its aftershocks in low-storey residential buildings in the town of Strazhitza, Bulgaria, situated in the epicentral zone are systematized. A scale of damages is compiled for two types of buildings which is coordinated with the MSK-64 scale. The territorial distribution of the seismic intensity is compared with the results of the detailed engineering-geological study. A correlation between the Quarternary deposit thickness and the observed seismic intensity is obtained.Paper presented at the 21st general assembly of the European Seismological Commission held in Sofia, 1988.     

Evaluating assumptions for seismic assessment of existing buildings

This paper evaluates the American FEMA 356 and the Greek GRECO (EC 8 based) procedural assumptions for the assessment of the seismic capacity of existing buildings via pushover analyses. Available experimental results from a four-storeyed building are used to compare the two different sets of assumptions. If the comparison is performed in terms of initial stiffness or plastic deformation capacities, the different partial assumptions of the procedures lead to large discrepancies, while the opposite occurs when the comparison is performed in terms of structural performance levels at target displacements. According to FEMA 356 assumptions, effective yield point rigidities are approximately four times greater than those of EC 8. Both procedures predicted that the structure would behave elastically during low-level excitation and that the structural performance level at target displacement for a high-level excitation would be between the Immediate Occupancy and Life Safety performance levels.     

Analysis of the weightiness of site effects on reinforced concrete (RC) building seismic behaviour: The Adra town example (SE Spain)

The damage distribution in Adra town (south‐eastern Spain) during the 1993 and 1994 Adra earthquakes (5.0 magnitude), that reached a maximum intensity degree of VII (European Macroseismic Scale (EMS scale)), was concentrated mainly in the south‐east zone of the town and the most relevant damage occurred in reinforced concrete (RC) buildings with four or five storeys. In order to evaluate the influence of ground condition on RC building behaviour, geological, geomorphological and geophysical surveys were carried out, and a detailed map of ground surface structure was obtained. Short‐period microtremor observations were performed in 160 sites on a 100m × 100m dimension grid and Nakamura's method was applied in order to determine a distribution map of soil predominant periods. Shorter predominant periods (0.1–0.3 s) were found in mountainous and neighbouring zones and larger periods (greater than 0.5 s) in thicker Holocene alluvial fans. A relationship T = (0.049 ± 0.001)N, where T is the natural period of swaying motion and N is the number of storeys, has been empirically obtained by using microtremor measurements at the top of 38 RC buildings (ranging from 2 to 9 storeys). 1‐D simulation of strong motion on different soil conditions and for several typical RC buildings were computed, using the acceleration record in Adra town of the 1993 earthquake. It is noteworthy that all the aforementioned results show the influence of site effects in the degree and distribution of observed building damage. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.