Full-scale measurements of wind effects on the Jin Mao building

The Jin Mao Building located in Pudong New Area, Shanghai, which has a height of 420.5 m and 88 floors, is currently the tallest building in Mainland China. This paper presents some selected results obtained from the full-scale measurements of wind effects on the Jin Mao Building during the passage of Typhoon Rananim in August, 2004. The field data including acceleration responses, wind speed and wind direction were simultaneously and continuously recorded during Typhoon Rananim. Detailed analysis of the field data was conducted to investigate wind effects on the super tall building. The characteristics of typhoon-generated wind and wind-induced responses of the 88-storey building are presented and discussed. Dynamic properties of the building are determined based on the field measurements, and comparison with those calculated from the finite element model of the building is made. The amplitude-dependent characteristics of damping that were obtained using the random decrement technique on the basis of the field measurements are investigated. Furthermore, wind tunnel experiment is conducted to study wind effects on the Jin Mao Building through force balance model test, and the full-scale measurements are compared with the wind tunnel test results for verification of wind tunnel test techniques. Finally, the serviceability of the super tall building under typhoon conditions is discussed.