Tall buildings located in Hong Kong suffer great damage caused by wind hazards throughout their lifetimes. In addition, the effect of wind hazards may be exacerbated due to the increase of roughness lengths and wind speeds due to the densely tall buildings and climate change, respectively. Therefore, developing a framework to evaluate and quantify the damage caused by wind hazards on tall buildings from the economic perspective is critical for engineers and building owners to design a cost-effective tall building. In this thesis, an economic damage indicator, life-cycle intervention cost, is measured by using a probabilistic method called life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA). Moreover, the building sector is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This thesis also...[ Read more ]

Tall buildings located in Hong Kong suffer great damage caused by wind hazards throughout their lifetimes. In addition, the effect of wind hazards may be exacerbated due to the increase of roughness lengths and wind speeds due to the densely tall buildings and climate change, respectively. Therefore, developing a framework to evaluate and quantify the damage caused by wind hazards on tall buildings from the economic perspective is critical for engineers and building owners to design a cost-effective tall building. In this thesis, an economic damage indicator, life-cycle intervention cost, is measured by using a probabilistic method called life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA). Moreover, the building sector is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This thesis also analyzes the environmental impact that may be generated in intervention or repair activities after wine-induced damage occurs. An indicator of environmental impact, embodied carbon emissions, is quantified by employing another probabilistic method called life-cycle assessment (LCA). Therefore, an integrated methodology combing the LCCA and LCA is proposed to evaluate potential damage costs and environmental impact caused by wind hazards on tall buildings.

Basically, the proposed methodology consists of five major parts: (1) simulating and predicting typhoon wind fields subject to climate change effects; (2) evaluating the interaction between buildings and wind, then further measuring building responses; (3) analyzing the fragility and damage probability of nonstructural components; (4) quantifying the potential damage cost by the LCCA process; and (5) measuring the potential embodied carbon emissions by the LCA process. The second-generation benchmark building is employed as a case study to illustrate the using details of the proposed methodology.

Furthermore, a control device called smart tuned mass damper (STMD) is assumed to be employed in the second-generation benchmark building. The aforementioned proposed methodology is used again to evaluate the performance of STMD, which suggests that the installation of STMD can mitigate structural responses, reduce life-cycle intervention costs, and relieve embodied carbon emissions of tall buildings subject to typhoon hazards significantly.