Stiffness-based design methodology for steel braced tube structures: A sustainable approach

Braced tubes are efficient structural systems for tall buildings and have been continuously used for major tall buildings since their emergence in the late 1960s. This paper presents a stiffness-based design methodology for determining preliminary member sizes of braced tubes for tall buildings. The methodology is applied to a set of buildings ranging from 40 to 80 stories tall, and parameters for the most economic design in terms of material usage are generated for representative design loadings. The impact of different geometric configurations of the structural members on the economic design is also discussed, and recommendations for the optimal geometries are made. The stiffness-based methodology, with a less iterative process, is very efficient for the preliminary design of braced tube structures, and will contribute to constructing built environments using minimum amounts of resources.