Wind-Induced Vibration of Traditional Chinese Citygate Buildings in the Ming-Qing Dynasties – A Case Study of the Nanjing Drum Tower

Compared to normal traditional Chinese timber buildings, citygate buildings are relatively high, lightweight, and quite vulnerable to wind. The present work aims to carry out a wind-induced vibration study on a traditional Chinese citygate building, the Nanjing Drum Tower, with the method of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to determine the wind loads and finite element (FE) analysis to assess its structural response. The architectural and structural characteristics of traditional Chinese timber buildings in the Ming-Qing dynasties are analysed. The Nanjing Drum Tower has typical characteristics and is taken as the representative building in this study. The wind pressure coefficients of the drum tower are obtained by CFD simulation with the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) model. The structural response of the drum tower under wind loads is analysed based on FE analysis. The obtained results can provide a basis for assessing the wind-induced vibration of traditional Chinese citygate buildings.