Vision for hybrid simulation testing of buildings under wind loading

Accumulated knowledge from earthquake engineering have motivated researchers and engineers to rethink wind engineering in terms of performance-based design and inelastic design of structures subjected to extreme wind hazards to achieve safety and economy. A key challenge in performance-based wind engineering is how to apply nonlinear analysis to predict inelastic building behavior and the risk of collapse for wind loads. This is due to the lack of knowledge on the inelastic wind-structure interaction, aerodynamic feedback, and how the structural stiffness and damping vary at larger building deformation. Current wind tunnel testing methods that utilize rigid or flexible linear elastic models are important but insufficient to ultimately develop performance-based wind engineering frameworks. An approach that combines computational nonlinear dynamic analysis with wind tunnel testing of nonlinear/inelastic building models is desirable. Such an approach can help understand the aerodynamic response and inelastic structural response of buildings under wind hazards, develop more accurate dynamic loading histories, and redefine (or develop) realistic target performance levels that span serviceability and strength objectives all the way to collapse. This paper presents a vision for revolutionizing aerodynamic wind tunnel modeling through an innovative hybrid simulation methodology. Hybrid simulation is a well-established testing method that was developed for seismic engineering to replace or complement shaking table tests. For wind applications and wind tunnel testing, real time hybrid simulation is desired but can be very challenging due to the reduced model scale in wind tunnels that requires the time scale of the loading histories to be significantly compressed. The different components needed to implement the envisioned hybrid simulation framework are presented in this paper along with the challenges associated with such implementation are presented in this paper. Although the paper focuses mainly on wind testing of buildings, the presented approach can be potentially extended to other applications such as bridges or power lines and infrastructure.