Pagoda-inspired floors reduce tower sway, cut material needs
Researchers have developed a new building design inspired by Japanese pagodas that uses a building's own mass to reduce sway in high winds and earthquakes, while also cutting material costs and carbon emissions.
Engineers from Imperial College London and Arup have pioneered a novel approach to designing tall buildings, drawing inspiration from traditional Japanese pagodas. This new method leverages a building's inherent weight to mitigate movement caused by high winds and seismic activity. Instead of rigidly resisting external forces, the design embraces movement and channels it to enhance the building's performance, leading to safer, more resilient, and sustainable structures.
The innovative concept challenges the conventional strategy of maximizing rigidity through larger structural components and increased material usage. The research, published in Nature Communications, proposes separating a cluster of usable floors near the building's apex from its central core. These floors are then connected via springs and dampers, allowing them to move slightly and independently. This controlled movement utilizes the mass of these floors to absorb energy and reduce overall building sway, proving effective in both wind tunnel tests and earthquake simulations.
Wind tunnel experiments on a 1:300 scale model of a 300-meter tower demonstrated significant reductions in building motion. Peak accelerations decreased by up to 71%, and base moments were reduced by over 50% compared to traditional designs. Seismic simulations showed a 42% average drop in top displacements, with the movable floors experiencing up to a 74% reduction in movement. Crucially, the controlled inter-floor and core movement remained minimal, ensuring occupants would not perceive the motion under normal conditions.
This pagoda-inspired system offers a dual benefit by addressing both wind-induced accelerations and earthquake-related displacements with a single integrated solution. This consolidation eliminates the need for separate damping systems, a significant advantage as more tall buildings are constructed in regions prone to both windstorms and earthquakes, such as coastal cities in Asia and the Americas.
This development represents a significant shift in structural engineering, moving from resistance to controlled motion. By integrating damping into the building's mass itself, it reduces the need for additional heavy components like tuned mass dampers. This approach enhances material efficiency and sustainability, aligning with the broader additive manufacturing push for lighter, stronger, and more resource-conscious designs, with potential applications in resilient infrastructure.
Edited by the news editor with AI from the original report — please refer to the original source.