Wooden architectural heritage is a symbol of architectural heritage worldwide and has high historical, cultural, and scientific values in Asia countries (e.g., China, Japan, Korea, and Nepal). Wooden pagoda (a kind of tower with multiple eaves in East Asia) serving as one important member of wooden architectural heritages suffers from damages that are caused in various natural disasters such as windstorm, fire, and earthquake due to its long-time service and considerable size. Wind caused damage is one of the most common damages caused by natural disasters, making the structural safety of high-rise wooden pagodas under wind action a major concern in architectural heritage protection. This study analyzes the wind effects on the Yingxian wooden pagoda in China by a wind tunnel test and computes the wind loads on the wooden pagoda. The wind characteristics of wooden the pagoda in a wind tunnel test are presented and compared with modern buildings and other types of wooden architectural heritages. Additionally, this study attempts to analyze the difference of the computed wind loads from the wind tunnel test and from the full-scale measurement. The results reveal that the wind pressure distribution at certain locations are similar to those of modern buildings or other ancient wooden architectures. However, the wind pressure distribution at some locations are distinctive due to the complexity of the architectural profile (e.g., the boundary of the pagoda is an octagon in bird view). The wind load from wind tunnel test are in good agreement with those in full-scale measurement with less than 14% error. This study extends the understanding of the wind effects and structural safety assessment on the high-rise wooden pagoda, providing useful guidelines for structural design (e.g., wind-resistant design) and for structural health monitoring (e.g., service maintenance) to monitor not just the specific wooden pagoda but also other high-rise pagodas, especially the those with top views of octagonal shapes.

Because of its high historical, cultural, and scientific value, wooden architectural heritage in East Asia requires comprehensive protection. The dou-gong (bracket set) is an essential member in ancient Chinese wooden architecture. The hysteresis behaviors of dou-gongs are critical to the abilities of structures to resist external dynamic loads, mainly including wind and earthquakes. It is crucial to develop an effective and convenient method to investigate the hysteresis performance of dou-gongs quantitatively. This study developed a simplified finite element model of dou-gongs using Euler beam and link elements. The types of Song-style dou-gongs and the experimental hysteresis characteristics were reviewed. Eight parameters of the skeleton and hysteresis curves were determined, and their suggested value ranges were proposed. The hysteresis behaviors, predicted using the proposed simplified simulation method, were compared with the experimental results, and the accuracy and rationality were validated. Finally, the applicability of the proposed simplified model was verified based on single and cooperative dou-gong performance. This study extends the simplified model of dou-gongs and provides useful guidelines to investigate their hysteresis performance.

Ancient wooden architectures have complex shapes and various components, thus the choice of different detail levels geometric models is a major concern in architectural heritage Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation. This paper exhibits detailed comparisons of CFD simulation with multiple Level of Detail (multi-LoD) geometric models in predicting wind pressure on a complex high-rise wooden pagoda (tower). The results reveal that it is sensible and feasible to model the pagoda CFD geometric model by Revit and predict the wind pressure by the Realizable k-ε turbulence model. The higher LoD model makes CFD results more consistent with those in the wind tunnel test, especially on the leeward of the pagoda. The components that affect the shape of the structure (e.g., the railings, ridges, and columns) have a great influence on the wind field. Rather, the components hidden in the architectural shape (e.g., Dougong) hardly affect the wind field. This paper aims to further understanding the CFD simulation with multi-LoD geometric models in evaluating the wind effects and assessing structural safety on a high-rise wooden pagoda. It also provides a basis for the modeling and CFD analysis of ancient wooden architecture.