Wind tunnel blockage corrections: Review and application to Savonius vertical-axis wind turbines

An investigation into wake and solid blockage effects of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) in closed test-section wind tunnel testing is described. Static wall pressures have been used to derive velocity increments along wind tunnel test section which in turn are applied to provide evidence of wake interference characteristics of rotating bodies interacting within this spatially restricted domain. Vertical-axis wind turbines present a unique aerodynamic obstruction in wind tunnel testing, whose blockage effects have not yet extensively investigated. The flowfield surrounding these wind turbines is asymmetric, periodic, unsteady, separated and highly turbulent. Static pressure measurements are taken along a test-section sidewall to provide a pressure signature of the test models under varying rotor tip-speed ratios (freestream conditions and model RPMs). Wake characteristics and VAWT performance produced by the same vertical-axis wind turbine concept tested at different physical scales and in two different wind tunnels are investigated in an attempt to provide some guidance on the scaling of the combined effects on blockage. This investigation provides evidence of the effects of large wall interactions and wake propagation caused by these models at well below generally accepted standard blockage figures.     

热力效应作用下小区风环境风洞试验研究

温度作为影响城市舒适度的主要因素之一,对流场的作用机理到目前为止尚不明确。为揭示温度场对流场的影响规律,基于大尺寸风洞,对不同热力条件下的平均风进行试验研究,得出不同理查逊数R_b作用下的人行高度风速、相关测点顺风向速度和雷诺剪切应力分布并进行详细分析。以长沙市某小区为研究背景,探究了不同热力效应下人行高度风场的分布规律,获取了热力条件下典型测点的相关性系数,并利用超越概率的方法定量评估了热力效应下的小区人行高度风环境。结果表明:在-0.38<R_b<0范围内,空风洞流场随着热力效应增大,在近地面风速增长相对较大,且随着高度的增加其增幅逐渐减缓; 实际中小区人行高度风环境受温度影响整体较小,主要影响集中在风速比0.6以下,最大均方根为0.635,风速比在0.6以上时温度对风速影响效果相对较小; 热力效应对人行高度风场的相关性与舒适度影响较小,其最大影响值分别为8%和3.87%。     

Simulation of honeycomb-screen combinations for turbulence management in a subsonic wind tunnel

Honeycomb and screens, mainly used for turbulence reduction, are the key elements of a subsonic wind tunnel. In this paper, design aspects of these elements are addressed for an open-circuit wind tunnel, installed at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG), India. The effectiveness of honeycomb and honeycomb-screen combinations, in reducing swirl and turbulence level in the test section, is studied by simulating the flowfield using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package ANSYS-CFX. RNG k−ε turbulence model, with scalable wall functions, is used for modeling turbulence. Results of these simulations for turbulence management, using honeycombs of different lengths, cell shapes and screens of different open area ratios, are found to be in good agreement with experimental and theoretical results available in open literature. These simulations have confirmed the methodology to be adopted for design of wind tunnel subsections. Thus validated design parameters have been used for fabricating the honeycomb and screens for the IITG wind tunnel.     

Field measurements and wind tunnel experimental investigations of wind effects on Guangzhou West Tower

The wind‐induced acceleration responses at the top of the Guangzhou West Tower (GZWT; 432 m) and the wind speed and direction at the top of Guangzhou Tower (532 m), which is located across the GZWT, were measured during the passage of Typhoon Mangkhut. The two buildings are separated by a river. The variation characteristics of the first two natural frequencies and damping ratios of the GZWT under strong vibrations are obtained by using random decrement technique (RDT) and modified Bayesian spectral density approach (MBSDA). Finally, field measurements of the maximum peak accelerations are compared with wind tunnel test results. The damping ratios identified by MBSDA are found to be greater than the results obtained by RDT. The natural frequencies decrease with increasing maximum acceleration of the corresponding acceleration segment. Besides, they decrease firstly and then increase with time elapses, reaching a minimum value at the maximum mean wind speed. The damping ratios are completely discrete, and no obvious linear correlation exists between the damping ratios and maximum acceleration of the corresponding acceleration segment. The peak accelerations at the top of the GZWT obtained from wind tunnel experiment agree well with that of full‐scale measurements.     

Effects of freestream turbulence on streamwise pressure measured on a square-section cylinder

Wind tunnel experiments were performed to study the effects of freestream turbulence on the flow around a square cylinder. The results indicate that the pressure fluctuations on streamwise surfaces are produced mainly by periodic vortex shedding when turbulence intensity, σ_u/U, is less than 12%. As σ_u/U approaches 20%, vortex shedding weakens significantly and pressure fluctuations occur over a broad range of frequency. Flow visualization experiments show that extreme negative pressure peaks in highly turbulent flow are associated with intermittent reattachment of separated shear layers. The results also show that an increase in turbulence scale causes peak pressure coefficients to increase.     

The effects of wind on people; New criteria based on wind tunnel experiments

Experiments on the effects of wind on people are described. About 40 people were involved in tests in a wind tunnel at the National Physical Laboratory. The wind tunnel was specially-adapted to produce gusty winds. The volunteers performed a number of everyday tasks at wind speeds of 4 and 8·5 m/s with and without turbulence. The steadiness and direction of walking were measured when the volunteers entered the tunnel and walked up and down. Forces on the ground were also measured. Six groups of volunteers gave subjective verbal assessments of wind conditions ranging from 4 to 12·5 m/s.From the experiments we have drawn conclusions as to what kinds of wind speed, gustiness and variation of wind speed are found to be tolerable, are found to affect performance, and are found to affect the people's balance while walking. We find people to be sensitive to variation in the wind so that previous criteria for acceptable wind speeds need to be revised downwards. New criteria are proposed to enable architects and planners to use wind speed and gustines data to predict whether wind conditions are likely to be acceptable or not.     

并列布置超高层建筑间的风压干扰效应

在边界层风洞中使用同步测压技术详细研究了双并列和三并列超高层建筑在不同间距下建筑各个立面风压的分布特征并用干扰因子IF(定义为建筑受扰后的风压值和相应单体情况的风压值之比)来描述施扰建筑的干扰影响。结果显示:双并列建筑相临立面的平均风压和峰值风压最大干扰因子(IFmax)具有高度的线性相关性,且IFmax随建筑间距而单调衰减。总的说来,两个施扰建筑的干扰效应高于单个施扰建筑的干扰效应,由回归分析得到的反映双并列和三并列建筑侧立面IFmax随并列间距比变化的经验关系式具有较高可信度。对于背风面,两个施扰建筑的干扰产生的放大效应明显大于单个施扰建筑,单个和两个施扰建筑可使受扰建筑背风面平均风压系数分别升高16%和36%、并使迎风面和背风面的总压差系数分别增加5%和13%。     

广州塔风荷载及风洞试验研究

广州塔总高600m,塔体外形复杂,基本周期长,对风荷载的响应比较敏感,风荷载成为结构设计的主要控制荷载。针对广州塔的特点,分两阶段进行了风工程研究,第一阶段解决外界风的输入问题,第二阶段解决结构在风荷载作用下的响应问题。风荷载及风洞试验的主要成果可作为类似工程结构设计的参考资料。     

Wind effects on Shenzhen Zhuoyue Century Center: Field measurement and wind tunnel test

Field measurements of wind effects on Zhuoyue Century Center were conducted during 4 typhoon events in the recent 5 years, during which the field data such as wind speeds, wind directions, and acceleration responses were simultaneously and continuously measured. On the basis of field measured data, dynamic characteristics of this super‐tall building were determined by recently developed fast Bayesian fast Fourier transform method. Using full‐scale measurement data under 4 typhoons and breezy conditions for modal identification, one could observe a relatively wide scatter in the identified modal damping ratios, and the damping ratios do not appear to have an obvious nonlinear relationship with vibration amplitude. The average damping ratios of the first 2 modes were 0.70% and 0.73%, respectively. Serviceability of the super‐tall building under wind action was analyzed on the basis of the field measured response. Finally, the measured wind‐induced acceleration responses were further compared with those obtained from the wind tunnel test to evaluate the accuracy of the model test results.     

Experimental and numerical study of wind pressures on irregular-plan shapes

This paper presents the results of a program of wind tunnel model tests on pressure distributions for irregular-plan shapes (L- and U-shaped models). The experiments were carried out in a closed-circuit wind tunnel and a multi-channel pressure measurement system was used to measure mean values of loads on 1:100 scale models. The same tests were carried out on a cube-shaped model as an experimental validation. The effectiveness of the model shape in changing the surface pressure distributions is assessed over an extended range of wind directions. The experimental data for the L- and U-shaped models showed different wall pressure distributions from those expected for single rectangular blocks. Furthermore, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code was used to illustrate some particular cases and to provide a better understanding of the flow patterns around these irregular-plan models and of the pressure distributions induced on their faces. Computed pressure coefficients have also been compared with wind tunnel results for normal and oblique wind incidence. A general good agreement has been found for normal wind incidence whereas some differences have occurred for other directions.     

Specification of the design wind load based on wind tunnel experiments

Once a high-quality wind tunnel experiment with no major flaws on the experimental side has been performed and the data have been processed/translated appropriately to the design-decisive variable, the final step is to estimate the appropriate load or load effect coefficient for the specification of the design wind load. Four questions arise: what is the appropriate length of a single run in the wind tunnel, what is the appropriate fractile of the observed extreme coefficients, how many independent experiments are required to estimate this fractile and what should be the target confidence interval. The paper tries to give some answers to these questions and discusses the findings in regard to some wind load codes.     

Measurements of wind drag on people standing in a wind tunnel

This report describes an experiment in which measurements were made of the wind drag on 331 people standing in turn in a wind tunnel. The results were analysed in terms of projected areas and drag coefficients, as is customary with wind tunnel measurements. Areas were then expressed as ratios to a person's total body surface area, calculated from weight and height. It was found that these area ratios and the drag coefficients could be related to the type of clothing, and eight categories were selected. The results thus provide a simple way of estimating the wind drag on a person for a known windspeed if his weight, height and type of cloting are known.     

低紊流度下二维矩形截面柱体模型表面风压分布的雷诺数效应

在雷诺数为(1.1～6.8) ×105的范围内测量了5种截面宽厚比(B/D分别为2.0、2.5、3.0、3.5和4.0)的二维矩形截面柱体模型的表面风压时程,研究了各模型的平均风压分布以及脉动风压分布随雷诺数的变化规律,并分析了雷诺数对5个模型的背风面中点风压系数的影响,进而从模型周围气流绕流的角度解释了矩形截面柱体模型雷诺数效应的机理.试验结果表明,5个模型的表面风压分布都受雷诺数的影响,且雷诺数不仅影响模型侧面气流再附区的风压分布,也影响模型侧面前缘气流分离区的风压分布.不同截面宽厚比的模型受雷诺数的影响程度也不同,其中B/D=4.0模型的表面风压分布对雷诺数最敏感,当雷诺数达到6.8×105时,其分离剪切层更易再附于模型侧面,其气流再附位置明显向前缘移动.此外,B/D=4.0模型的背风面负压绝对值随雷诺数的增大呈现先增大后急剧减小的变化规律.     

The dependence of offshore turbulence intensity on wind speed

Four years of 10 min mean wind data from the offshore measuring platform FINO1 (Forschung in Nord-und Ostsee 1) in the German Bight have been analyzed to obtain the dependence of turbulence intensity on the wind speed. The investigated dataset is unique in so far as no high quality long-term measurements with a height resolution of 10 m at heights between 33 and 103 m and a minimum distance to the coast of 45 km have been available so far.Wave height and therefore sea surface roughness and turbulence intensity increase with increasing wind speed. The influence of the surface roughness decreases with height. Results are compared to previous results and to the specifications given by the IEC wind turbine standards 61400-1 and 61400-3.     

群体高层建筑的峰值风压分布特征

基于同步测压技术,研究了不同宽度比和不同高度比（记为Br和Hr,分别表示施扰和受扰建筑的宽度与高度之比）的2个高层建筑在串列、斜列和并列布置时峰值风压干扰效应。结果表明：邻近施扰建筑的侧面峰值风压主要呈现放大效应,且宽度比越大（Br≤1时）,高度比越大,放大效应越明显,立面最高负风压系数绝对值可升高30%。迎风面放大效应区则主要集中在施扰建筑位于横风向间距为3b(b为受扰建筑的迎风宽度)的迎风区域内,立面最高正风压系数可升高40%。当串列间距较小且高度比小于1（Hr=0.8）时产生的三维绕流现象可使得受扰建筑侧面局部风压升高61%,迎风面边缘局部风压升高24%。并列布置时产生的峡谷效应引起足够的重视,试验测得最大干扰因子可达2.13且随并列间距的增大而减少,当并列间距超过9b时峡谷效应才渐趋消失。由试验结果回归得到的并列布置时的侧立面最大峰值风压干扰因子随并列间距变化的关系式具有较高可信度。     

开洞门式刚架房屋风荷载的数值模拟

结合风洞模型试验对门式刚架房屋在不同风向来流风作用下的屋面风压进行了数值模拟分析．通过分析比较数值模拟结果和风洞试验结果发现,开洞位置和风向角对轻钢门式刚架的风压具有显著影响,当开洞的大小一定时,越接近屋面的位置,对建筑风荷载减小的程度越大,风向角在0°到90°的范围内,随角度的增大,屋面的减压效果越来越明显等相关结论。     

低矮建筑表面破坏性旋涡及其诱导的风压特性研究综述

柱状涡和锥形涡是低矮建筑表面常见的两种破坏性旋涡。这两种旋涡将在屋盖表面局部诱导产生强风吸力,会使结构整体失效。因此,为减少低矮建筑的风致破坏,应对其表面旋涡及诱导的风压特性进行研究。通过调研相关文献,对旋涡形态特征、旋涡诱导的风压分布特性以及旋涡作用下强风吸力产生机理三个方面的研究现状进行了总结。结果表明：柱状涡和锥形涡在低矮建筑屋面诱导的风压分布可分别采用相应的拟合公式进行统一表达;其诱导下的风压脉动特性大多通过幅值分析（时域）和能量分析（频域）获得。为了探讨旋涡诱导下强风吸力的产生机理,基于风洞试验所测得的风压数据,研究其时域及频域特征;并结合旋涡理论,对旋涡作用机理给出间接的理论推测。此外,亦有学者通过测量旋涡截面流速,对现有旋涡模型进行改进,据此分析旋涡作用与涡下吸力的量化关系。     

数值风洞在大跨屋盖结构风荷载确定中的应用

运用计算流体力学数值模拟技术对大跨屋盖结构表面风荷载进行了研究。对平屋面和曲面屋面表面风压分布进行了数值模拟。在此基础上,对大庆石油学院体育馆屋盖表面进行了风洞试验和数值模拟的对比研究,并对大射电望远镜FAST反射面的风压分布及其周围流场进行了数值模拟,为该工程的结构抗风设计提供了参考。