Dynamic Analysis - Wind Tunnel Data Report Generation

Tekla Structural Designer
2020
Tekla Structural Designer
release notes
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Dynamic Analysis - Wind Tunnel Data Report Generation

Specialist wind tunnel consultants are sometimes employed to determine structure specific wind loading on a project, typically this applies to tall or unusual structures. Following customer requests a new feature set has been added to enable easy and rapid generation of Dynamic Analysis data required by the wind tunnel testing consultant. Note that the Modal analysis capability and output principally required for such data has always existed in Structural Designer - this feature adds a new simple workflow and automated report tables to produce the commonly required data. A new dedicated “Wind Tunnel Data” Ribbon Tab - shown in the picture below - walks the engineer step-by-step through the required input and generated tabular output which can then be conveniently exported straight to Excel for sharing with third parties.

Tall Building Features - note that this feature adds to and will likely be used in conjunction with a number of more recently added features targeted particularly at the design of tall buildings. These are:

The key aspects of this new feature are:

  • The new dedicated ribbon tab is opened by selecting the “Wind Tunnel” button in the Data group of the Analyze Ribbon as shown above. The tab contains all the commands required to define the required Mass combination, configure the analysis settings, run the analysis and review and export the report data.

  • The basic process to produce a Report is as follows:

    • Select the “Add” button to create a new Load Combinations of the “Modal Mass” class which is required for Modal Analysis - add the required load cases with their appropriate factors to this.

      • Also review the “Applied mass” tab; while all directions are active by default, you can uncheck the “Dir Z” option so only lateral modes are included.

      • Should it be required, you can the select the “Edit” button to go directly to the Modal Mass combination(s)

    • Select “Settings” to directly access the Analysis settings for 1st Order Modal to review/ edit these.

      • The default settings are likely to be adequate for many circumstances, but the experienced engineer may prefer to enable the Lumped Mass Model and Simple Mass reporting options.

    • Select “Run Modal Analysis” - on completion the automated report tables will be populated and can be reviewed.

    • The report tables are listed in the View type group of the ribbon and are:

      • Total Masses by Level - a completely new output table summarizing the dynamic mass at each level*; the Dynamic Mass Total**, the Center of Mass (COM) coordinates and the Mass Moment of inertia (often termed the Rotational Inertia).

        • *Note that only levels with the “Floor” checkbox enabled in Construction Levels are included.

        • **The existing tables giving the mass distribution to all nodes (Total and Active) are also still available.

      • Modal Frequencies - the same table of frequencies that has always been available after Modal Analysis

      • Mode Shape by Level - a completely new output table giving a single mode shape deflection value at the COM for each floor - select the mode shape to view results for in the drop list in the “Result Mode” ribbon group to the right.

        • Since mode shape deflection values are typically very small* - especially for very large structures - for improved precision the engineer may like to set the Exponential format threshold for values lower than to 1E-3 (Home > Model Settings > Units).

    • Finally, the entire report - or the currently selected table - can be exported directly to Excel via the Export current/ full report buttons in the Export group of the ribbon.

  • Reminder - when the wind consultants complete their work they will typically pass back wind forces as a series of level loads. The recently added Diaphragm Loads option can be used to apply these to the model. Using this, the level loads can easily be imported as described in Diaphragm loads and diaphragm load tables.
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