SUMMARYThe time‐dependent behavior is a major consideration in the design and construction of tall buildings, especially in concrete and composite structural systems. To make an analysis of long‐term effect of steel‐reinforced concrete structures, the method of using master–slave constraint to deduce substructure element model of composite members was introduced, and the problem of co‐work between steel and concrete was solved. The creep calculation method of combined Age‐adjusted Effective Modulus Method (AEMM) and finite element method was adopted. Steel Reinforced Concrete Construction Modeling (SRCCM), a calculation program based on Visual C++ and ObjectARX, was developed for simulating the construction process of high‐rise composite structures. The use of the method is illustrated through one computation example of Shanghai Center Tower, which is a super high‐rise steel‐reinforced concrete structures. The method provides valuable information about time effects that may be used in designing new structures or in diagnosis existing structures. The results also indicate that the vertical shortening of Shanghai Center Tower between column and core‐tube is significant. Such differential length changes should be compensated during the construction process of high‐rise composite structures. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.