• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.15-36
• /
• 2015

Characterization of wind flows over a complex terrain, especially mountain-gorge terrain (referred to as the very complex terrain with rolling mountains and deep narrow gorges), is an important issue for design and operation of long-span bridges constructed in this area. In both wind tunnel testing and numerical simulation, a transition section is often used to connect the wind tunnel floor or computational domain bottom and the boundary top of the terrain model in order to generate a smooth flow transition over the edge of the terrain model. Although the transition section plays an important role in simulation of wind field over complex terrain, an appropriate shape needs investigation. In this study, two principles for selecting an appropriate shape of boundary transition section were proposed, and a theoretical curve serving for the mountain-gorge terrain model was derived based on potential flow theory around a circular cylinder. Then a two-dimensional (2-D) simulation was used to compare the flow transition performance between the proposed curved transition section and the traditional ramp transition section in a wind tunnel. Furthermore, the wind velocity field induced by the curved transition section with an equivalent slope of $30^{\circ}$ was investigated in detail, and a parameter called the 'velocity stability factor' was defined; an analytical model for predicting the velocity stability factor was also proposed. The results show that the proposed curved transition section has a better flow transition performance compared with the traditional ramp transition section. The proposed analytical model can also adequately predict the velocity stability factor of the wind field.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.4 no.3
• /
• pp.247-260
• /
• 2001

In the last three decades several comprehensive field measurement programs have produced significant insight into the wind effects on low-rise structures. The most notable and well published of these efforts are measurements being collected at the Wind Engineering Field Laboratory (WERFL) at Texas Tech University, measurements on low-rise structures in Silsoe, England and measurements on groups of low-rise structures collected in Aylesbury, England. Complementary to these efforts, an additional full-scale field investigation program has recently collected meteorological, pressure, strain and displacement data on a low-rise structure in Southern Shores, North Carolina. To date over seventy-five hundred data sets have been collected at the Southern Shores site in a variety meteorological conditions up to and including hurricane-force winds. This paper provides details of the system, its development, and preliminary assessment of its performance. A description of the field site, the instrumented structure, and the instrumentation system is provided. In addition, an example of the data collected during three hurricanes is presented. The primary goal of this paper is to provide the reader with the necessary technical details to appropriately interpret data from this experiment, which will be presented in future publications currently under development.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.97-108
• /
• 2003

A three-dimensional wind field model based on the variational technique has been developed for estimating the overall wind patterns over a complex terrain. The three-dimensional elliptic partial differential equations on Cartesian and terrain-following coordinates have been established to obtain the Lagrangian multiplier and the adjusted wind velocity. The simulations were performed to evaluate the variations of the velocity vectors on the hemisphere, half-cylinder, and saddle type obstacles. Also, the wind field model in the terrain-following coordinate has been applied for evaluating the characteristics of wind patterns according to the variations of Gauss precision moduli on the hemispheric topography. The results showed that the horizontal and vertical wind components were strongly governed by the selection of the values of Gauss precision moduli.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.11-20
• /
• 2012

In this paper, the authors test various open codes and commercial codes based on CFD technology on the wind field around the complex terrain, which is a very important transport physics in the event of forrest fire. To study the physical mechanism inside the transition from surface fire to crown fire, the wake flow behind a parallel array of trees is studied numerically to show the flow separation in the turbulent boundary layer. Two sites near to Kunsan National University are chosen for the measurement of real wind field, and obtained data are compared with those from various computational codes such as Wind-Ninja, NIST-FDS, ANSYS-CFX, and ANSYS-FlUENT, etc. Through this research, feasibility and accuracy of the present CFD codes are investigated quantitatively, compared with the measured data with AWS.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
• /
• 2008.10a
• /
• pp.297-300
• /
• 2008

High-resolution mesoscale meteorological modeling requires more accurate and higher resolution digital elevation model (DEM) data. Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) has created 90 m DEM for entire globe and that is freely available for meteorological modeling and environmental applications. In this research, the effects of the topographic interpolation methods on high-resolution wind field simulation in the coastal regions were quantitatively analyzed using Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with SRTM data. Sensitivity experiments with three different interpolation schemes (four-point bilinear, sixteen-point overlapping parabolic and nearest neighbor interpolation methods) were preformed using SRTM. In WRF modeling with sixteen-point overlapping parabolic interpolation, the coastal line and some small islands show more clearly than other cases. The maximum height of inland is around 140 meters higher, while the minimum of sea height is about 80 meter lower. As it concerns the results of each scheme it seems that the sixteen-point overlapping parabolic scheme indicates the well agreement with observed surface wind data. Consequently, topographic changes due to interpolation methods can lead to the significant influence on mesoscale wind field simulation of WRF modeling.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.45-60
• /
• 2007

Transmission tower is a vital component in electrical system. In order to accurately compute the dynamic response and reliability of transmission tower under the excitation of wind loading, a new method termed as probability density evolution method (PDEM) is introduced in the paper. The PDEM had been proved to be of high accuracy and efficiency in most kinds of stochastic structural analysis. Consequently, it is very hopeful for the above needs to apply the PDEM in dynamic response of wind-excited transmission towers. Meanwhile, this paper explores the wind stochastic field from stochastic Fourier spectrum. Based on this new viewpoint, the basic random parameters of the wind stochastic field, the roughness length $z_0$ and the mean wind velocity at 10 m heigh $U_{10}$, as well as their probability density functions, are investigated. A latticed steel transmission tower subject to wind loading is studied in detail. It is shown that not only the statistic quantities of the dynamic response, but also the instantaneous PDF of the response and the time varying reliability can be worked out by the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the PDEM is feasible and efficient in the dynamic response and reliability analysis of wind-excited transmission towers.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.18-24
• /
• 2015

Large wind turbine generators with high temperature superconductors (HTS) are in incessant development because of their advantages such as weight and volume reduction and the increased efficiency compared with conventional technologies. In addition, nowadays the wind turbine market is growing in a function of time, increasing the capacity and energy production of the wind farms installed and increasing the electrical power for the electrical generators installed. As a consequence, it is raising the wind power energy contribution for the global electricity demand. In this study, a forecast of wind energy development will be firstly emphasized, then it continue presenting a recent status of the technology development of large scale HTSG for wind power followed by an explanation of HTS wire trend, cryogenics cooling systems concept, HTS magnets field coil stability and other technological parts for optimization of HTS generator design - operating temperature, design topology, field coil shape and level cost of energy, as well. Finally, the most relevant projects and designs of HTS generators specifically for offshore wind power systems are also mentioned in this study.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.545-559
• /
• 2000

A Wind and Structural Health Monitoring System (WASHMS) has been installed in the Tsing Ma suspension Bridge in Hong Kong with one of the objectives being the verification of analytical processes used in wind-resistant design. On 2 August 1997, Typhoon Victor just crossed over the Bridge and the WASHMS timely recorded both wind and structural response. The measurement data are analysed in this paper to obtain the mean wind speed, mean wind direction, mean wind inclination, turbulence intensity, integral scale, gust factor, wind spectrum, and the acceleration response and natural frequency of the Bridge. It is found that some features of wind structure and bridge response are difficult to be considered in the currently used analytical process for predicting buffeting response of long suspension bridges, for the Bridge is surrounded by a complex topography and the wind direction of Typhoon Victor changes during its crossing. It seems to be necessary to improve the prediction model so that a reasonable comparison can be performed between the measurement and prediction for long suspension bridges in typhoon prone regions.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.353-370
• /
• 2014

A new method is proposed in this study for estimating the damping ratio of a super tall building under strong wind loads with short-time measured acceleration signals. This method incorporates two main steps. Firstly, the power spectral density of wind-induced acceleration response is obtained by the wavelet transform, then the dynamic characteristics including the natural frequency and damping ratio for the first vibration mode are estimated by a nonlinear regression analysis on the power spectral density. A numerical simulation illustrated that the damping ratios identified by the wavelet spectrum are superior in precision and stability to those values obtained from Welch's periodogram spectrum. To verify the efficiency of the proposed method, wind-induced acceleration responses of the Guangzhou West Tower (GZWT) measured in the field during Typhoon Usagi, which affected this building on September 22, 2013, were used. The damping ratios identified varied from 0.38% to 0.61% in direction 1 and from 0.22% to 0.59% in direction 2. This information is expected to be of considerable interest and practical use for engineers and researchers involved in the wind-resistant design of super-tall buildings.

• Wind and Structures
• /
• v.32 no.5
• /
• pp.509-520
• /
• 2021

The streamlined box is a common type of girders for long-span suspension bridges. Spanning deep canyons, long-span bridges are frequently attacked by strong winds with large angles of attack. In this situation, the flow field around the streamlined box changes significantly, leading to reduction of the flutter performance. The wind fairings have different effects on the flutter performance. Therefore, this study examines the flutter performance of box girders with different wind fairings at large angles of attack. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were carried out to extract the flutter derivatives, and the critical flutter state of a long-span bridge was determined. Further comparisons of the wind fairings were investigated by a rapid method which is related to the input energy by the aerodynamic force. The results show that a reasonable type of wind fairings could improve the flutter performance of long-span bridges at large angles of attack. For the torsional flutter instability, the wind fairings weaken the adverse effect of the vortex attaching to the girder, and a sharper one could achieve a better result. According to the input energies on the girder with different wind fairings, the symmetrical wind fairings are more beneficial to the flutter performance