WIND LOAD ANALYSIS OF TWO STEEL BUILDINGS CONNECTED WITH A SKY-BRIDGE

Abstract

If we have two buildings and it’s required to connect them together by a bridge to allow the access between them, the best solution is to use a bridge with hinged-roller end conditions. Especially, if the two connected buildings are not similar in shape as the axial forces that affect the bridge under wind and thermal loads increase in these cases more than the case of identical connected tall buildings. For hinged-roller end conditions, the bridge is able to translate in both x and y directions which make the axial force that affects the bridge due to wind load in x-direction (parallel to bridge) and thermal loads very small values too close to zero which can be considered non-existing. The only problem of this case is the effect of the wind load in y-direction (perpendicular to bridge) on the connecting bridge as the main beams of the bridge act as a horizontal cantilever beam. For identical buildings connected by a bridge with hinged-roller end conditions, the axial forces induced in the main beams of the bridge due to wind load in y-direction are bigger than which they are obtained from the case that the bridge is with hinged-hinged end conditions. But for non-similar buildings, the axial forces induced in the main beams of the bridge due to wind load in y-direction are found to be bigger in case of bridges with hinged-hinged end conditions and that’s because of the large difference in the stiffness between the two connected tall buildings.