Advanced Simulation Platforms for Performance Based Engineering

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Performance Based Engineering (PBE) is a balanced approach to the design of a new building or evaluation of an existing structure that often achieves the best possible balance between construction costs and ultimate performance. Although PBE has progressed successfully in earthquake engineering practice (i.e., Performance Based Earthquake Engineering-PBEE), there are only a limited number of studies for the application of PBE in wind engineering (i.e., Performance Based Wind Engineering-PBWE). From a structural design point of view, the main contribution of PBWE lies in finding a realistic yet more economical design solution that satisfies the requirements at the collapse prevention level by allowing inelastic response of materials. Although there is a large amount of literature related to nonlinear analysis of structures under seismic loading, the same cannot be said regarding the literature on nonlinear analysis under wind loads. As such, a comprehensive research program is proposed here to address these gaps. Composed of four complementary projects, the proposed program aims to improve the available tools for both PBWE and PBEE simultaneously. To do this, we will leverage high performance computational resources where (i) computational fluid dynamics (CDF) simulations with different levels of fidelities will be validated against a comprehensive wind tunnel database and thus advancing the prospects of using CFD tools in structural engineering applications (Project 1, PBWE); (ii) CFD simulations will be coupled with structural dynamics simulations where the realistic wind loading conditions obtained from CFD simulations will be used to analyze the dynamic performance of structures both in linear and nonlinear ranges, and thus addressing the lack of understanding of nonlinear structural behavior under wind loads (Project 2, PBWE); (iii) CFD simulations will be coupled with structural simulations by considering also the fluid structure interaction, and thus providing a clear understanding of the nonlinear structural response under wind loading with flow-induced vibration mechanisms (Project 3, PBWE); (iv) different parallel computing strategies will be used in real-time hardware customization to implement more realistic numerical substructure models for Real-time Hybrid Simulation (RTHS), and thus significantly expanding the application scope of RTHS as a state-of-the-art testing method in PBE (Project 4, PBEE, PBWE). By providing structural engineers with enhanced numerical and experimental tools the proposed research program will efficiently contribute to the design and understanding of next generation structures under different hazard conditions due to seismic and wind events. With the dissemination of the research findings, and through the highly qualified personnel that will be trained, this research program will place Canada in a leading position in the fields of performance-based engineering, structural design, simulation and testing.