• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.115-128
• /
• 2018

Appropriate modeling of a tornado-like vortex is a prerequisite when studying the near-ground wind characteristics of a tornado and tornado-induced wind loads on structures. Both Ward- and ISU-type tornado simulators employ guide vanes to induce angular momentum to converge flow in order to generate tornado-like vortices. But in the Ward-type simulator, the guide vanes are mounted near the ground while in the ISU-type they are located at a high position to allow vertical circulation of flow that creates a rotating downdraft to generate a tornado-like vortex. In this study, numerical simulations were performed to reproduce tornado-like vortices using both Ward-type and ISU-type tornado simulators, from which the effects of rotating downdraft on the vortex characteristics were clarified. Particular attention was devoted to the wander of tornado-like vortices, and their dependences on swirl ratio and fetch length were investigated. The present study showed that the dynamic vortex structure depends significantly on the vortex-generating mechanism, although the time-averaged structure remains similar. This feature should be taken into consideration when tornado-like-vortex simulators are utilized to investigate tornado-induced wind forces on structures.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.179-190
• /
• 2018

Translation of tornadoes is an important feature in replicating the near-ground tornado flow field which has been simulated in previous studies based on Ward-type tornado simulators using relative motion of the ground plane. In this laboratory investigation, effects of translation on the near-ground tornado flow field were studied using the ISU Tornado Simulator that can physically translate over a ground plane. Two translation speeds, 0.15 m/s and 0.50 m/s, that scale up to those corresponding to slowly-moving tornadoes in the field were selected for this study. Compared with the flow field of a stationary tornado, the simulated tornado with translation had an influence on the spatial distribution and magnitude of the horizontal velocities, early reversal of the radial inflow, and expansion of the core radius. Maximum horizontal velocities were observed to occur behind the center of the translating tornado and on the right side of its mean path. An increase in translation speed, resulted in reduction of maximum horizontal velocities at all heights. Comparison of the results with previous studies that used relative motion of the ground plane for simulating translating tornadoes, showed that translation has similar effects on the flow field at smaller radial distances (~2 core radius), but different effects at larger radial distances (~4 core radius). Further, it showed that the effect of translation on velocity profiles is noticeable at and above an elevation of ~0.6 core radius, unlike those in studies based on the relative motion of the ground plane.