The Evolution of Outrigger System in Tall Buildings

The structural efficiency of tall buildings heavily depends on the lateral stiffness and resistance capacity. Among those structural systems for tall buildings, outrigger system is one of the most common and efficient systems especially for those with relatively regular floor plan. The use of outriggers in building structures can be traced back from early 50 from the concept of deep beams. With the rise of building height, deep beams become concrete walls or now in a form of at least one story high steel truss type of outriggers. Because of the widened choice in material to be adopted in outriggers, the form and even the objective of using outrigger system is also changing. In the past, outrigger systems is only used to provide additional stiffness to reduce drift and deflection. New applications for outrigger systems now move to provide additional damping to reduce wind load and acceleration, and also could be used as structural fuse to protect the building under a severe earthquake condition. Besides analysis and member design, construction issue of outrigger systems is somehow cannot be separated. Axial shortening effect between core and perimeter structure is unavoidable. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review on the outrigger system in tall buildings including development history and applications of outrigger systems in tall buildings. The concept of outrigger system, optimum topology, and design and construction consideration will also be discussed and presented.