ASCE has honored Gholamreza Amirinia, Ph.D., Aff.ASCE, and Sungmoon Jung, Ph.D., M.ASCE, with the 2019 Alfred Noble Prize for the paper “Along-Wind Response of High-Rise Buildings Subjected to Hurricane Boundary Layer Winds,” Journal of Structural Engineering, September 2017.
From the Abstract—
Recent studies show that characteristics of hurricane surface winds are different from those of nonhurricane surface winds. The characteristics relevant to analyzing high-rise buildings include mean wind speed profile, turbulence intensity, and turbulence spectrum. The objective of this study is to quantify how these differences influence along-wind response of high-rise buildings in an open terrain. After summarizing recent findings in hurricane boundary layer winds, the characteristics of high-rise buildings in terms of natural frequency and dimension aspect ratio were discussed and the role of aerodynamic admittance in unsteady analysis of high-rise buildings [was] investigated. To illustrate the discussion, three different sample high-rise buildings with various characteristics were chosen for unsteady analysis of the along-wind effects of hurricanes. The results showed that for very high rising buildings, hurricane winds caused higher along-wind forces and responses compared to regular boundary layer high winds. This difference between hurricane winds and regular boundary layer winds decreased for lower heights and higher natural frequencies. Results for regular boundary layer high winds were well matched with High Frequency Force Balance (HFFB) measurements by NatHaz Aerodynamic Load Database (NALD); however, for hurricane winds, root-mean-square base moments were higher than those from HFFB measurements.
Lead author Amirinia is a research associate at Florida State University; Jung is associate professor at FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.
The Alfred Noble Prize recognizes a technical paper of exceptional merit accepted by the Committee on Publications of ASCE, AIME, ASME, IEEE or WSE.
