For Module 6, I chose to evaluate the total construction cost and the total overturning moment at the base caused by wind. I created 2 custom nodes, tested on the building model from Module 5 part1, and compiled the results of gross floor area, gross surface area, gross volume, total construction cost, and total wind overturning moment from 6 different rotation angles at the middle ranging from 60 to 120 degrees.
For the construction custom node, I assumed the construction cost of each floor grows exponentially for such high-rise tower due to material transportation, labor, and structural component cost, with a relationship of CostPerFloor = 2.314*Story^1.5 +500$, where the top story in my case goes to 1000$. I used the BuildingForm.MassFloor function to get the floor area of each story and multiply by the cost per story to get the total cost.
For the overturning moment caused by wind load custom node, I added the surface area per floor output to the BuildingForm.MassFloor function, and the total moment can be calculated by wind load of each story multiplied by story elevation. Dubai is a windy area and I assumed the top floor to have a max wind load of 200psf, and the wind load profile is assumed to be linear. Total Moment = SUM (Wind Load * (1/3) Surface Area * Elevation).
The first custom node captures meaningful difference of the relationship between total construction cost and mid rotation angle. By increasing the mid rotation angle, the construction cost is significantly reduced due to reduced floor area in upper floors. The wind overturning metric is intended to learn about how the structural system needs to be designed to withstand strong wind, but there is not a strong correlation between mid rotation angle to wind induced moment in this case. There are other meaningful metrics such as rigorous computational fluid mechanics to calculate actual wind load, floor to surface ratio for insulation and energy cost, and also solar studies, which may produce more effective results.
