The Canton Tower, located in Guangzhou, China, is an example of landmark architecture with a total height of 600 meters. The main tower is 454 meters high with the Antenna mast another 146 meters. The total weight of the Canton Tower is 19,4000 Tons.
The main structure of the tower consists of a reinforced concrete inner structure with an elliptic cross-section of 14 meters by 17 meters and a steel lattice outer structure with a cross-section providing a oval throughout the height of the tower. The middle of tower is fairly thin compared with the bottom and top which makes the tower aesthetically attractive.
Since the Canton Tower is an ultra-high slender structure with low damping, it is dynamically wind sensitive which potentially increases acceleration levels under strong wind. Persistent wind-induced vibration can result in not only fatigue damage of the structure, but also discomfort for people.
The research team of the Earthquake Engineering and Research Testing Center of Guangzhou University therefore proposed a novel control strategy of hybrid vibration control in which an active-passive Hybrid Mass Dampers (HMD) is applied with the fail-safe function. This novel control strategy has successfully been applied to the Canton Tower to decrease wind response and improve human comfort in the event of a strong typhoon. This project was honored with the first prize of science and technology progress of Guangdong Province in 2014 and with the second prize of national scientific and technological progress in 2016.
Fig.1 Overall perspective of Canton Tower Fig.2 HMD control system
Fig.3 Novel Hybrid Mass Dampers
Fig.4 Bi-directional sliding bearing
Chinese