Performance Evaluation of Database-Enabled Design Frameworks for the Preliminary Design of Tall Buildings

Abstract

Database-enabled design (DED) frameworks offer convenient meshing of wind-tunnel driven databases with state-of-the-art analysis methodologies for the design of low-rise to high-rise buildings. These procedures can serve as an alternative or supplementary tool to codes and standards. Despite their obvious advantages over simplified code-specified procedures, the response estimates obtained from these data-driven frameworks are by nature susceptible to the accuracy of both the analysis schemes employed within the procedure as well as the aerodynamic databases that are driven by different wind tunnels, instrumentations, and experimental techniques. To examine and quantify these potential sources of discrepancy, this paper attempts to evaluate the performance of various cyber-based DED frameworks that are currently used in the preliminary design of tall buildings. To this end, a systematic comparison is carried out among along-wind and across-wind response estimates of a typical building example using some of the most recently proposed DED frameworks.