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60-Story Outrigger & Belt-Truss Tower
Multi-level outrigger and perimeter belt-truss interaction mobilizing exterior megacolumns against lateral wind overturning.
In tall slender buildings, cantilevering shear walls alone become excessively flexible above 40–50 stories. This 60-story tower introduces deep 3-story steel outrigger and perimeter belt trusses at floors 20, 40, and 60, transferring overturning moment from the central RC core into axial push-pull forces in exterior mega-columns. WebCAE evaluates wind lateral displacement reduction, global buckling safety factors under dead loads, and fundamental vibration frequencies across 75k degrees of freedom.
1. Geometry & FEA Mesh
- •Dimensions: height 240.0 m (60 stories), floor plate 40.5 × 40.5 m, central RC core 13.5 × 13.5 m with internal cross-walls (t = 0.6 m).
- •Outrigger system: 8 three-story outrigger trusses per level (chords 546 × 46 mm, diagonals 437 × 36 mm) at levels 20, 40, and 60 connecting core walls to perimeter columns.
- •Perimeter belt trusses: continuous 3-story perimeter trusses (chords 382 × 32 mm, braces 300 × 25 mm) redistributing column loads around the building envelope.
- •Total elements: 14,256 quad shell elements, 5,604 frame members, 11,608 nodes (69,120 active static DOFs, 74,800+ total DOFs).
2. Loads & Boundary Conditions
- •Clamped base constraints for all perimeter columns and RC core shear walls at foundation slab level.
- •Boundary-layer design wind pressure applied across the 4 facades, delivering 18.21 MN base shear and 2,941.6 MN·m overturning moment.
- •Self-weight gravity load (core, floors, steel trusses) generating prestress for geometric stiffness matrix K_σ eigenvalue buckling solution.
3. Simulation Results & Findings
- ✓Top lateral wind drift restricted to u_top = 0.241 m (under optimized outrigger coupling) with inter-story drift within H/587.
- ✓Global structural stability safety factor under gravitational self-weight achieves λ₁ = 7.72 without local member premature buckling.
- ✓Fundamental bending vibration frequency f₁ = 0.214 Hz, confirming high lateral stiffness under wind turbulence excitation.
High-rise structural engineers employ WebCAE to determine optimal outrigger floor elevations and member sizing without cumbersome desktop licenses. Sharing .caeweb models directly with developers and MEP teams clarifies outrigger mechanical floor penetrations and structural drift margins instantly.
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