Coupled vibration of tall building structures

Free vibration analysis is presented for general tall building structures, which may consist of any combination of frames, shear walls, structural cores and coupled walls. Emphasis of the analysis is placed on the coupled lateral-torsional vibration characteristic of the structures. Based on the continuum technique and D'Alembert's principle, the governing equation of free vibration and corresponding eigenvalue problem are derived. By applying the Galerkin technique, a generalized method of solution is proposed for the analysis of coupled vibration of general tall building structures. Based on the proposed method, a computation procedure is presented for predicting the natural frequencies and associated mode shapes of the structures in coupled vibration. Numerical investigation is conducted to validate the simplicity and accuracy of the proposed method. It has been shown that the proposed analysis provides an effective way, particularly at the preliminary design stage, for evaluating the vibration behaviour of tall buildings. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd