Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics 17 (2002) 233239

www.elsevier.com/locate/probengmech

Analysis of structures subjected to random wind loading by simulation in

the frequency domain
Ricardo Daniel Ambrosini a,*, Jorge Daniel Riera b, Rodolfo Francisco Danesi c
a
Structures Institute, National University of Tucuman, CONICET, Av. Roca 1800, 4000 San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina
b
CPGEC, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Nilo Pecanha 550, Ap 302, 90470-000 Porto Alegre, Brazil
c
Structures Institute, National University of Tucuman, CONICET, Munecas 586 1A, 4000 San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina

Abstract
The closely related methods of transfer matrices and direct numerical integration have been extensively used in the analysis of free
standing structures. In case of structures subjected to dynamic loading, the method is particularly suitable to analysis in the frequency
domain, enabling the consideration of arbitrary linear time-dependent material behaviour without additional difculties. In this paper, a
method is proposed to simulate stationary random processes in the frequency domain and it is applied for analysis of structures under along-
wind action. The method requires less computational effort than standard procedures to obtain the power spectral density function of response
quantities of interest and, since the solutions are obtained by simulation, may be extended to include in the formulation some types of non-
linearity. Furthermore, it can be advantageously employed in the dynamic analysis of thin-walled open section beams, for which other
alternatives are rarely available. The method proposed is applied to various free-standing towers and chimneys, for which response
measurements are available, allowing a direct comparison of theoretical and experimental results. q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Keywords: Along-wind loading; Monte Carlo simulation; Stationary random process; Slender structures; Towers and chimneys; Frequency domain; Thin-
walled open section beams

1. Introduction systems under harmonic excitation. Ebner and Billington

The closely related methods of transfer matrices and
direct numerical integration have been used extensively
for the analysis of free standing, as well as guyed structures
and similar systems. The basic difference between the two
schemes is that in the latter, numerical integration, using for
example the RungeKutta and/or the predictorcorrector
methods, is employed for generating the eld transfer
matrices. When closed form solutions are available for the
eld matrices, the scheme is known as simply the `transfer
matrix method'.
A systematic procedure was proposed by Falk [1] and
extensively developed by Kersten [2] later. Applications
to static instability problems with consideration of second-
order effects are due to Puger [3] and Riera et al. [4],
among others.
The determination of natural frequencies and modes of
vibration of undamped continuous beams and shafts has
been discussed in detail by Pestel and Leckie [5], who
also described the calculation of dynamic response of
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: 154-381-436-4087.
E-mail address: dambrosini@herrera.unt.edu.ar (R.D. Ambrosini).
0266-8920/02/$ - see front matter q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0266-892 0(02)00008-5
[6] employed numerical integration to study steady state
vibrations of damped Timoshenko beams. Numerous other
applications can be found in the literature concerning
straight and curved beams, as well as arch and shell struc-
tures. In the latter, the approach must be used in conjunction
with variable separation and eigenfunction series expansion.
The method lends itself well to the study of different
structural typologies, as those presented in different papers.
For example, slender buildings [7,8], guyed chimney stacks
[9,10], airport towers [11], cooling towers [12], TV and
telephone guyed mast [13], as well as for analysing simple
stayed bridge structures under wind action.
The purpose of this paper is to extend the method to the
evaluation of structural response to random wind excitation.
Prenninger and Schueller [14] applied transfer matrices to
study the reliability of tall buildings under wind loading, but
they followed the classical approach of determining the
power spectral density functions (PSDF) of selected
response quantities, from previously calculated admittance
functions. Although the basic idea is also applicable to
nite element or nite difference representations of the
structure and to other types of stochastic loads, the
approach described here is particularly suitable in
234 R.D. Ambrosini et al. / Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics 17 (2002) 233239

connection with transfer matrix or numerical integration presented by Riera and Ambrosini [17] and Ambrosini et al.
techniques. [18] in previous papers. For the sake of completeness, the
basic features of the approach are summarised in the follow-
ing sections.
2. Structure model

The physical model of the structure, presented by Ambrosini 3.1. Stationary random loading
et al. [15,16], is based on a general formulation of beams
Wind loading is commonly idealised as a stationary,
based on Vlasov's theory of thin-walled beams, which is
correlated, Gaussian stochastic process. This assumption is
modied to include the effects of shear exibility and
applicable to conditions of vertically stable atmosphere,
rotatory inertia in the stress resultants, as well as variable
such as in case of extended pressure systems, also known
cross-sectional properties. In addition, a linear viscoelastic
as extratropical storms, and also, with certain restrictions, to
constitutive law is considered. The external loads may be
tropical storm winds. Assume now that the spatial coordin-
arbitrary functions of the space coordinates.
ate z denotes height above ground level and that only one
The elements mentioned above lead to a system with
component of the load vector has to be specied. The longi-
three-fourth order partial differential equations with three
tudinal component (of the uctuating part) of the wind velo-
unknowns. Using the Fourier transform to work in the
city will be considered as an example. It will be seen later
frequency domain, an equivalent system with 12 rst-
that the procedure may be extended without difculty to
order partial differential equations with 12 unknowns is
more general situations.
formed. The scheme previously described is known in the
The velocity components of interest is dened by its
literature as `state variables approach'. The following six
probability spectral density function (PSDF)Sv(v ),
geometric and six static quantities are selected as com-
which is related to the real Re(v ) and the imaginary
ponents of the state vector v: the displacements j and h ,
Im(v ) parts of the Fourier transform of the load (the usual
the bending rotations f x and f y, the normal shear stress
assumption is made that the uctuating pressure is directly
resultants Qx and Qy, the bending moments Mx and My, the
proportional to the uctuating velocity) by means of
torsional rotation u and its spatial derivative u 0 , the total
torsional moment MT and the bimoment B Sv v ERe2 v 1 Im2 v 4
0 T
vz; v {h; f y ; Qy ; Mx ; j; f x ; Qx ; My ; u; u ; MT ; B} 1 In which E( ) denotes expected value. In addition, the spatial
The system behaviour is described by correlation of the velocity (load) must be specied, as will
be discussed in Section 3.2. At this point it should be noted
2v
Av 1 q 2 that Eq. (4) suggests an attractive alternative for generating
2z articial wind records for purposes of structural design.
Starting from the fact that if the longitudinal uctuating
qz; v {0; 0; 2qx ; 0; 0; 0; 2qy ; 0; 0; 0; 2mA ; 0}T 3
wind velocity component is Gaussian, then the real and
In which A is the system matrix and q the external load imaginary parts of its Fourier transform will also be
vector. In order to facilitate the numerical solution, the Gaussian variables; it follows that, on account of Eq. (4)
real and imaginary parts of the functions are separated,
Rev N0; 0:5Sv 5
which yields a nal system of 24 rst-order partial differ-
ential equations with 24 unknowns. Obviously, in numerical
applications, the fast Fourier transform (FFT) is used. Then, Imv N0; 0:5Sv 6
the problem dened by Eq. (2), plus the necessary boundary
The notation N above indicates a normal variable with zero
conditions may be solved, for any xed value of v , using
mean and variance equal to 0.5Sv. Thus, the procedure
standard numerical integration methods and well-known
proposed by Prenninger [19] for the generation of single
techniques for transformation of the two-point boundary-
articial wind records is being adopted below as a starting
value problem into an initial-value problem [5]. Repeating
point. The idea is extremely simple: if the components of the
the procedure for the entire set of values of the frequency v ,
load vector in Eq. (2) can be specied, by simulation, then
the FFT of the state vector components can be obtained. If
the FFT of all response quantities may be obtained at once.
desired, the inverse FFT of any quantities of interest, i.e. of
The power spectrum of any desired quantity, say the
any component of the state vector, may be calculated, in
displacement at the top, or the base moment, are given by
order to have those quantities represented as function time.
the sum of the squared values of the real and imaginary parts
of the respective FFT. One sample of such power spectrum
3. Determination of the load vector would constitute a crude estimator of the PSDF. To evaluate
the latter, several simulations would be needed, in order to
The consideration of the wind load as a stationary random estimate the PSDF, that is, its mean, with condence.
stochastic process and the simulation of wind records were However, in practical applications the variance of the
 R.D. Ambrosini et al. / Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics 17 (2002) 233239 235

response quantity is all that is needed. This is given by correlation, the expression proposed by Davenport [21] for
Z1 the `correlation length' was adopted. The correlation length
s v2 Sv vdv 7 Lc is dened as the area under the correlation curve:
21  
Z1 C1 vx
Obviously, the variability of s v2 is much smaller than that of Lc v exp dx 12
the integrand. This may be clearly visualised by noting that, 0 2pV10
for computational purposes, the integral in Eq. (7) is Pioneering measurements of the parameter C1 for vertical
replaced by a nite sum over the range of frequency of correlation were due, among others, to Shiotani and Iwatani
interest. Since normally a large number of terms is taken [22], but still there is considerable uncertainty concerning
in the FFT, say 256, the variance of the sum, which repre- the structure of atmospheric wind. It should be noted that
sents the estimated value of s v2 ; is much smaller than that of
2pV10
the individual values of Sv(v ). Hence, very few simulations Lc v 13
are needed to adequately characterise the random response C1 v
of the structure. It is felt that the need for more than three Consider now the variable
simulations will rarely be justiable. Note that, in wind
a1 u1 1 a2 u2
tunnel studies, the mean square value of any specic x
2 14
quantity if often measured is observed only once. At best, a21 1 a22
the experiment is repeated a few times, say three to ve, In which u1 and u2 are independent normal random variables
practice that is compatible with engineering objectives. with a1 1 2 j; a 2 j and j Dz=L c ; Dz being the
distance between the points at which u1 and u2 are to be
3.2. Generation of wind eld
simulated. It may be easily veried that the normalised
The treatment of spatial correlation will be described in correlation coefcient is
connection with an example of an articially generated ru1 u2 1 2 z 15
wind eld. Note that Eq. (2) requires the specication of
the transformed load vector in a space (z) vs. frequency (v ) A linear ru1 u2 as given by Eq. (15), in view of the scarce and
plane. The steps for each frequency v j are as follows: contradictory experimental evidence concerning the spatial
correlation of the uctuating component of turbulent wind,
(a) Select the cut-off frequency and the number of points seems as good an approximation as any, and will be used in
in which the interval will be divided. In general, N $ 256. the following for the sake of algebraic simplicity. It should
(b) Generate a sample from a variable with uniform prob- be stressed, however, that more complex laws for the spatial
ability distribution in the interval [0, 1]. velocity correlation may be adopted without difculty.
(c) Transform the sample obtained in (a) to a normally Then, at each frequency v j, a process u1, is generated at
distributed variable with zero mean and unit standard the beginning of the interval z 0: An independent
deviation Xn. process u2 is generated at z Lc : The ordinates of the
(d) Obtain the desired components of the FFT of the wind FFT for 0 # z # Lc are computed using Eq. (14).
velocity by means of The height dependence of the mean wind speed can be
described by the well known Hellmann law [23], also
X Xn 0:5Sv vj 1=2 8
adopted herein for the sake of simplicity:
 a
z
Vz V10 16
In order to characterise the wind, Davenport's spectrum [20] 10
was used
fSv f 2 n2 3.3. Load vector
9
s v2 3 1 1 n2 4=3 At this point, the components of the load vector (3) must
in which f is the frequency in Hertz, and be determined. The wind force Fw exerted on a structure is
fL0 Fw z; t 1=2ra ACVz; t2 17
n 10
V10
in which r a is air density, A the area exposed to wind and C
the drag coefcient. The relative wind velocity Vt is given
s v2 I 2 V10
2
11
by
in which V10 is the mean wind velocity at reference height
_
Vz; t Vz 1 Dvt 2 xt 18
z0 10 m; I (0.100.18) the intensity of turbulence and L0 a
length scale which is approximately 1200 m. in which Vz is the statical ow, Dvt; the turbulence, is a
The steps outlined in (a)(d) lead to the FFT of indepen- zero mean stationary Gaussian process simulated according
dent samples of the wind velocity. To account for the spatial _ is
to the method described in Sections 3.1 and 3.2, while xt
236 R.D. Ambrosini et al. / Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics 17 (2002) 233239

Fig. 1. Simulated wind velocities.

the structural velocity. This velocity is neglected in many ing wind with the following characteristics: V10 20 m/s,
cases, since the structure is assumed to be stiff. With this I 0:15; C1 5; Dt 0:04 s; Ttotal 20:48 s; Df
simplication, inserting Eq. (18) in Eq. (17), we obtain 0:049 Hz; fmax 25 Hz; H 50 m:
In order to start the process of simulation it is necessary to
Fw z; t 1=2ra ACVz2 1 2VzDvt 1 Dvt2 19 supply two numbers (seeds) for the real and imaginary parts
The r.h.s. of Eq. (19) constitutes the effective excitation, that of the uctuating velocity. The time histories of the simu-
is non-linear and, hence, non-Gaussian, even if Dvt is lated velocities are shown in Fig. 1 for z 0; 0.05H, 0.95H
Gaussian. To nd the response to this excitation, in and H. It may be clearly seen in Fig. 1 that the wind velo-
engineering practice the so-called quasi-static theory cities corresponding to z 0 and z 0:05H (base of the
advanced by Davenport [24] is commonly used, for which structure) are strongly correlated, especially in the low
frequency range. The same fact is observed to z 0:95H
Fw z; t < 1=2ra ACVz2 1 2VzDvt 20 and z H (top of the structure). However, there is no
The procedure entails a statistical linearisation, as discussed correlation between the base and the top of the structure.
by Floris [25]. Then, the load per unit length q becomes Note that in applications it is not necessary to reconstruct
the time histories of the velocities.
qz; t 1=2ra bCVz2 1 2VzDvt 21
in which b is the structural dimension perpendicular to wind. 4. Structural response
Finally, the components of the load vector (3) are
qx z; t 1=2ra bCx Vz2 1 2VzDvt 22 The procedure described above was implemented in the
computer program windy. Two illustrative examples, for
which other theoretical solutions and/or response measure-
qy z; t 1=2ra bCy Vz2 1 2VzDvt 23
ments are available, are discussed as follows.

mA z; t 1=2ra b2 CT Vz2 1 2VzDvt 24

4.1. Reinforced concrete chimney [26]

3.4. Application of the method Chimney B: 250 m high conical reinforced concrete
structure with base and top diameters equal to 25 and 5 m,
A numerical example will now be presented, in order to respectively. The mass per unit length is assumed to vary
show the effectiveness of the approach. Consider an incom- linearly from 40 t/m at the base to 8 t/m at the top. The
 R.D. Ambrosini et al. / Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics 17 (2002) 233239 237

fundamental frequency is 0.40 Hz, while damping is 0.8%
of critical. The characteristics of the incident wind are inten-
sity of turbulence I 0:11; drag coefcient Cx 0:6; mean
velocity at reference height V10 30.85 m/s, mean wind
prole coefcient a 0:15: The results are presented in
Table 1 that shows that response quantities obtained using
the proposed approach are very close to those obtained by
Vickery by means of well established procedures.
The computational program allows the determination of
the time response of the state variables (1) at any height z of
the structure. As an example, the time history of the base
shear force, base bending moment and top displacements of
the chimney are shown in Fig. 2.
4.2. Steel chimney [10]
A 28 m high steel chimney with 0.91 m diameter will be
considered. This chimney, shown in Fig. 3, was erected on a

Fig. 2. Chimney response.

238 R.D. Ambrosini et al. / Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics 17 (2002) 233239

Table 1
Structural response of chimney B

Model Static response Total response

Base shear force (MN) Base bending moment (MN m) Max. base shear force (MN) Max. base bending moment (MN m)

Vickery 2.425 280.1 4.360 589.8

This paper 2.417 276.6 4.314 519.5

Table 2
Gust response factors calculated and measured [10]

Sv f Davenport RWTH RWTH RWTH Response by measurement

Model Vickery Vickery Davenport RWTH

G 3.20 3.01 2.75 2.56 2.28

DG/G (%) 140 132 121 112

Table 3
Gust factors measured and obtained by simulation

Coef. of damping 0.02 0.05 Response by measurement

Sv f Davenport RWTH Davenport RWTH

G 2.70 2.62 2.56 2.48 2.28

DG/G measurement (%) 118 115 112 19
DG/G a (%) 118 115
DG/G b (%) 15
DG/G c (%) 22
a
Table 2. Model Vickery.
b
Table 2. Model Davenport. Sv f RWTH.
c
Table 2. Model RWTH. Sv f RWTH.

wind test eld at the University of Aachen, Germany. The
steel stack was modelled with a linearly varying cross-
section (wall thickness of 12 mm at the base and 3 mm at
the top) yielding a fundamental frequency of 1.7 Hz, in
agreement with Galemann and Ruscheweyh [10]. Accord-
ing to measured data, numerical values V10 15 m/s and
C1 7; were adopted in the example. The intensity of
turbulence I 0:23; as well as the mean wind velocity
were assumed to be constant throughout the interval. The
aerodynamic coefcients adopted were Cx CT 0 and
Cy 0:46: Exponent a for the vertical prole was 0.16.
For comparison purposes, the hysteretic damping coefcient
of the model was taken to be equal to 0.02, equivalent to the
total (viscous 1 aerodynamic) damping indicated by
Galemann and Ruscheweyh [10] and to 0.05, which is an
upper bound of damping recommended in codes.
In order to compare the results, the gust response factor G
is calculated by
hmax
G 25
h

in which h max is the maximum displacement in the y-

direction and h is the mean displacement in the same axis.
Based on the measured data, Galemann and Ruscheweyh
[10] suggest an expression for the power spectrum given
by Eq. (26) and herein denoted (RWTH)

fSv f 1 n
26
Fig. 3. Full-scale experimental steel chimney. s v2 2 1:65 1 n2 4=5
 R.D. Ambrosini et al. / Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics 17 (2002) 233239
in which n is given by Eq. (10) and L0 1500 m: The
calculation of the response of the chimney was carried out
by Galemann and Ruscheweyh [10] using different com-
binations of wind spectra and aerodynamic admission
functions. These results are compared with the direct
measurements in Table 2, while the results obtained herein,
on the basis of three simulations, are shown in Table 3. The
results summarised in Tables 2 and 3 suggest that the gust
factors obtained by simulation are adequate for engineering
applications, differing around 10% from other theoretical
values.
5. Conclusions
A procedure to employ numerical integration methods, or
alternatively the transfer matrix method, to analyse free
standing or cable stayed structures subjected to random
wind loads has been presented. The scheme offers several
advantages with regard to other alternatives: in rst place, it
permits the consideration of any type of (linear) viscoelastic
material behaviour, as well as any spatial distribution of
the dissipative forces. Moreover, no restrictions need be
imposed on the character and correlation structure of the
applied loading. Finally, the scheme may be extended to
the evaluation of the random torsionalexural response
of tall towers of arbitrary cross-section, by introducing the
vertical correlation of the instantaneous wind velocity
vector.
Acknowledgements
The nancial support of CONICET (Argentina) and
CAPES (Brazil) are gratefully acknowledged.
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