• Wind and Structures
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.143-158
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• 2000

This report presents the findings of a one-year monitoring effort to empirically characterize and evaluate the nature of near-ground winds for structural engineering purposes. The current wind engineering practice in the United States does not explicitly consider certain important near-ground wind characteristics in typical rough terrain conditions and the possible effect on efficient design of low-rise structures, such as homes and other light-frame buildings that comprise most of the building population. Therefore, near ground wind data was collected for the purpose of comparing actual near-ground wind characteristics to the current U.S. wind engineering practice. The study provides data depicting variability of wind speeds, wind velocity profiles for a major thunderstorm event and a northeaster, and the influence of thunderstorms on annual extreme wind speeds at various heights above ground in a typical rough environment. Data showing the decrease in the power law exponent with increasing wind speed is also presented. It is demonstrated that near-ground wind speeds (i.e., less than 10 m above ground) are likely to be over-estimated in the current design practice by as much as 20 percent which may result in wind load over-estimate of about 50% for low-rise buildings in typical rough terrain. The importance of thunderstorm wind profiles on determination of design wind speeds and building loads (particularly for buildings substantially taller than 10 m) is also discussed. Recommendations are given for possible improvements to the current design practice in the United States with respect to low-rise buildings in rough terrain and for the need to study the impact of thunderstorm gust profile shapes on extreme value wind speed estimates and building loads.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.371-391
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• 2021

Tornadoes are the most devastating meteorological natural hazards. Many empirical and theoretical numerical models of tornado vortex have been proposed, because it is difficult to carry out direct measurements of tornado velocity components. However, most of existing numerical models fail to explain the physical structure of tornado vortices. The present paper proposes a new empirical numerical model for a tornado vortex, and its load effects on a low-rise and a tall building are calculated and compared with those for existing numerical models. The velocity components of the proposed model show clear variations with radius and height, showing good agreement with the results of field measurements, wind tunnel experiments and computational fluid dynamics. Normal stresses in the columns of a low-rise building obtained from the proposed model show intermediate values when compared with those obtained from existing numerical models. Local forces on a tall building show clear variation with height and the largest local forces show similar values to most existing numerical models. Local forces increase with increasing turbulence intensity and are found to depend mainly on reference velocity Uref and moving velocity Umov. However, they collapse to one curve for the same normalized velocity Uref / Umov. The effects of reference radius and reference height are found to be small. Resultant fluctuating force of generalized forces obtained from the modified Rankine model is considered to be larger than those obtained from the proposed model. Fluctuating force increases as the integral length scale increases for the modified Rankine model, while they remain almost constant regardless of the integral length scale for the proposed model.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.459-472
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• 1996

An experimental investigation on the wind flow over smooth bell-shaped two-dimensional hills with hill slopes (the ratio of height to half width) of 0.3 and 0.5 is performed in an atmospheric boundary-layer wind tunnel. Two categories of the models are used in the present investigation; six two-dimensional single-hills, and four continuous double-hills. The measurements of the flow field and surface static-pressure distribution are carried out over the Reynolds number (based on the hill height) of 1.9 $\times 10^4, 3.3 \times 10^4, and 5.6 \times 10^4$. The velocity profiles and turbulence characteristics are measured by the pitot-tube and X-type hot-wire anemometer, respectively. The undisturbed boundary-layer profile on the bottom surface of the wind tunnel is reasonably consistent with the power-law profile with $\alpha = 7.0 (1/\alpha$ is the power-law exponent) and shows good spanwise uniformities. The profiles of turbulent intensity are found to be consistent along the centerline of the wind tunnel. The measured non-dimensional speed-up profiles at the hill crest show good agreements with the predictions of Jackson and Hunt's linear theory. The flow separation occurs in the hill slope of 0.5, and the oil-ink dot method is used to find the reattachment points in the leeside of the hill. The measured reattachment points are compared with the numerical predictions. Comparisons of the mean velocity profiles and surface pressure distributions between the numerical predictions and the experimental results show good agreements.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.39.3-39.3
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• 2010

Solar-terrestrial links in short-time scales(daily ~monthly) are extensively explored in recent years: such as a response of low cloud amounts to the Forbush decrease, a response of Northern Atlantic oscillation index to sudden increase in electric field intensity of solar wind and so on (e.g., Svensmark et al., 2009; Boberg & Lundstedt, 2002). In this study, we perform the superposed epoch analysis to see any possible response of the sea-level pressure over Korean peninsula to the fast solar wind stream. Data sets are daily values, and zero days are determined to be days when the solar wind velocity exceeds 800km/s. Average profile of superposed sea-level pressure shows a gradual increase during the first 2 days and a decrease afterward below the normal level with a low pressure condition maintained for a few days. This result indicates that the sea-level pressure may respond to the fast solar wind stream. In other words, the average profile of sea-level pressure mimics the average velocity profiles. The correlation coefficient between two average profiles is 0.80, with 2 day lag.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.387-390
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• 2007

Recently the diameter of the 5MW wind turbine reaches 126m, and the tower height is nearly the same with the wind turbine diameter. The blade will experience periodic inflow oscillation due to blade rotation inside the ground shear flow region, that is, the inflow velocity is maximum at uppermost position and minimum at lowermost position. In this study we compare the aerodynamic data between two inflow conditions, i.e, uniform flow and normal wind profile. From the computed results all of the relative errors for oscillating amplitudes increased due to the ground shear flow effect. Especially My at hub and $F_x$, $M_y$, $M_z$ at LSS increased enormously. It turns out that the aerodynamic analysis including the ground shear flow effect must be considered for fatigue load analysis.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.275-289
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• 2008

Large eddy simulations have been performed within and over different types of urban building arrays. This paper adopted three dimensionless parameters, building frontal area density (${\lambda}_f$) the variation degree of building height (${\sigma}_h$), and the staggered degree of building range ($r_s$), to study the systematic influence of building spacing, height and layout on wind and turbulent characteristics. The following results have been achieved: (1) As ${\lambda}_f$ decrease from 0.25 to 0.18, the mean flow patterns transfer from "skimming" flow to "wake interference" flow, and as ${\lambda}_f$ decrease from 0.06 to 0.04, the mean flow patterns transfer from "wake interference" flow to "isolated roughness" flow. With increasing ${\lambda}_f$, wind velocity within arrays increases, and the vortexes in front of low buildings would break, even disappear, whereas the vortexes in front of tall buildings would strengthen and expand. Tall buildings have greater disturbance on wind than low buildings do. (2) All the wind velocity profiles and the upstream profile converge at the height of 2.5H approximately. The decay of wind velocity within the building canopy was in positive correlation with ${\lambda}_f$ and $r_s$. If the height of building arrays is variable, Macdonald's wind velocity model should be modified through introducing ${\sigma}_h$, because wind velocity decreases at the upper layers of the canopy and increases at the lower layers of the canopy. (3) The maximum of turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) always locates at 1.2 times as high as the buildings. TKE within the canopy decreases with increasing ${\lambda}_f$ and $r_s$ but the maximum of TKE are very close though ${\sigma}_h$ varies. (4) Wind velocity profile follows the logarithmic law approximately above the building canopy. The Zero-plane displacement $z_d$ heighten with increasing ${\lambda}_f$, whereas the maximum of and Roughness length $z_0$ occurs when ${\lambda}_f$ is about 0.14. $z_d$ and $z_0$ heighten linearly with ${\sigma}_h$ and $r_s$, If ${\sigma}_h$ is large enough, $z_d$ may become higher than the average height of buildings.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.13-25
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• 1997

Sobolev approximation can be adopted to a macroscopic supersonic motion comparatively larger than a random (thermal) one. It has recently been applied not only to the winds of hot early type stars, but also to envelopes of late type giants and/or supergiants. However, since the ratio of wind velocity to stochastic one is comparatively small in the winds of these stars, the condition for applying the Sobolev approximation is not fulfilled any more. Therefore the validity of the Sobolev approximation must be checked. We have calculated exact P Cygni profiles with various velocity ratios, $V_\infty/V_{sto}$, using the accelerated lambda iteration method, comparing with those obtained by the Sobolev approximation. While the velocity ratio decrease, serious deviations have been occured over the whole line profile. When the gradual increase in the velocity structure happens near the surface of star, the amount of deviations become more serious even at the high velocity ratios. The investigations have been applied to observed UV line profile of CIV in the Copernicus spectrums $of\;\zeta\;Puppis\;and\;NV\;of\;\tau\;Sco$. In case of $\tau$ Sco which has an expanding envelope with the gradual velocity increase in the inner region, The Sobolev approximation has given the serious deviations in the line profiles.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2014

Quite recently, it has been suggested that the interaction of the solar wind with Mercury results in the variation in the solar wind velocity in the Earth's neighborhood during inferior conjunctions with Mercury. This suggestion has important implications both on the plasma physics of the interplanetary space and on the space weather forecast. In this study we have attempted to answer a question of whether the claim is properly tested. We confirm that there are indeed ups and downs in the profile of the solar wind velocity measured at the distance of 1 AU from the Sun. However, the characteristic attribute of the variation in the solar wind velocity during the inferior conjunctions with Mercury is found to be insensitive to the phase of the solar cycles, contrary to an earlier suggestion. We have found that the cases of the superior conjunctions with Mercury and of even randomly chosen data sets rather result in similar features. Cases of Venus are also examined, where it is found that the ups and downs with a period of ~ 10 to 15 days can be also seen. We conclude, therefore, that those variations in the solar wind velocity turn out to be a part of random fluctuations and have nothing to do with the relative position of inner planets. At least, one should conclude that the solar wind velocity is not a proper observable modulated by inner planets at the distance of 1 AU from the Sun in the Earth's neighborhood during inferior conjunctions.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.219-237
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• 2009

This study examines the accuracy of large-eddy simulation (LES) to simulate the flow around a large irregular sloping complex terrain. Typically, real built up environments are surrounded by complex terrain geometries with many features. The complex terrain surrounding The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology campus was modelled and the flow over an uphill slope was simulated. The simulated results, including mean velocity profiles and turbulence intensities, were compared with the flow characteristics measured in a wind tunnel model test. Given the size of the domain and the corresponding constraints on the resolution of the simulation, the mean velocity components within the boundary layer flow, especially in the stream-wise direction were found to be reasonably well replicated by the LES. The turbulence intensity values were found to differ from the wind tunnel results in the building recirculation zones, mostly due to the constraints placed on spatial and temporal resolutions. Based on the validated mean velocity profile results, the flow-structure interactions around these buildings and the surrounding terrain were examined.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.147-154
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• 2010

The world is gradually running short of fossil fuel. Currently, the role of wind turbine is attracting great attention from all over the world. The objective of this study is to investigate blades of Vertical-axial wind turbine (VAWT) for optimum design using the CFD from the aerodynamics point of view. Because one of the performance of wind turbine depends on shape of blades, the study of comparing one gyro mill type blade and a modified one was carried out. Using the results of computation, we calculated and compared RPM for both models at same wind velocity. And we calculated angular acceleration and moment of inertia to find torque in every time-step. And the pressure contour and velocity profile around the blade were analyzed Also, this study is performed to calculate the wake effect.