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    Tall building design

    The design of tall buildings essentially involve a conceptual design, approximate analysis, preliminary design and optimization, to safely carry gravity and lateral loads. The design criteria are strength, serviceability, stability and human comfort. The strength is satisfied by limit stresses, while serviceability is satisfied by drift limits in the range of H/500 to H/1000. Stability is satisfied by a sufficient factor of safety against buckling and P-Delta effects. The factor of safety is around 1.67 to 1.92. The human comfort aspects are satisfied by accelerations in the range of 10 to 25 milli-g, where g=acceleration due to gravity, about 981cms/sec^2. The aim of the structural engineer is to arrive at suitable structural schemes, to satisfy these criteria, and assess their structural weights in weight/unit area in square feet or square meters. This initiates structural drawings and specifications to enable construction engineers to proceed with fabrication and erection operations. The weight of steel in-lbs/sqft or in kg/sqm is often a parameter the architects and construction managers are looking for from the structural engineer. This includes the weights of the floor system, girders, braces and columns. The premium for wind is optimized to yield drifts in the range of H/500, where H is the height of the tall building. Herein, some aspects of the design of the gravity system, and the lateral system, are explored.