Strong wind disasters, especially tornadoes with high damage scales, constantly cause huge damage to electric power grids (EPGs). In this paper, a concept is presented to quantify the connectivity reliability of EPGs under tornadoes. First, a tornado wind field is established using a modified Rankine vortex model, which is a representative 2D tornado wind field model. Second, fragility models of grid components, including transmission substations, transmission support structures, distribution poles, distribution conductors, and local circuits, are introduced. Third, a Monte Carlo simulation is presented to evaluate the connectivity reliability of EPGs under tornadoes. Finally, the connectivity reliability is verified under different scales and propagation angles of tornadoes by taking an actual EPG in China as a case study. Results show that the connectivity reliability directly correlates with the maximum wind speed and the propagation angle of the tornado, and the EPG experiences severe damage when the tornado exceeds the Enhanced Fujita 3 scale.

The current paper presents an investigation, which has its main objective in the verification of outdoor wind flow CFD simulation results (ANSYS R Fluent) with real environment measurements in urban setting. The details of the simulation set-up are discussed in the paper including the inlet boundary conditions, surface roughness parameters and the source/sink terms to represent the effect of trees. The simulation results are compared with the high-resolution on-site wind velocity measurements from the Measurement of Turbulence in an Urban Setup (MoTUS) project of Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Multiple simulations were conducted to evaluate the performance of the model based on different wind direction and speeds. At the end of the current study, the highly consistent and accurate results were observed from all 18 verification cases; with the RMSEs of the simulated wind velocities in range of 0.21 and 0.59 m/s only.

The wind-blown sand effect on the high-speed train is investigated. Unsteady RANS equation and the SST k–ω turbulent model coupled with the discrete phase model (DPM) are utilized to simulate the two-phase of air-sand. Sand impact force is calculated based on the Hertzian impact theory. The different cases, including various wind velocity, train speed, sand particle diameter, were simulated. The train's flow field characteristics and the sand impact force were analyzed. The results show that the sand environment makes the pressure increase under different wind velocity and train speed situations. Sand impact force increases with the increasing train speed and sand particle diameter under the same particle mass flow rate. The train aerodynamic force connected with sand impact force when the train running in the wind-sand environment were compared with the aerodynamic force when the train running in the pure wind environment. The results show that the head car longitudinal force increase with wind speed increasing. When the crosswind speed is larger than 35m/s, the effect of the wind- sand environment on the train increases obviously. The longitudinal force of head car increases 23% and lateral force of tail increases 12% comparing to the pure wind environment. The sand concentration in air is the most important factor which influences the sand impact force on the train.

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.

This study analyzed the pressure patterns and local pressure of tall buildings with corner modifications (recessed and chamfered corner) using wind tunnel tests and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). POD can distinguish pressure patterns by POD mode and more dominant pressure patterns can be found according to the order of POD modes. Results show that both recessed and chamfered corners effectively reduced wind-induced responses. Additionally, unique effects were observed depending on the ratio of corner modification. Tall building models with recessed corners showed fluctuations in the approaching wind flow in the first POD mode and vortex shedding effects in the second POD mode. With large corner modification, energy distribution became small in the first POD mode, which shows that the effect of the first POD mode reduced. Among building models with chamfered corners, vortex shedding effects appeared in the first POD mode, except for the model with the highest ratio of corner modifications. The POD confirmed that both recessed and chamfered corners play a role in reducing vortex shedding effects, and the normalized power spectral density peak value of modes showing vortex shedding was smaller than that of the building model with a square section. Vortex shedding effects were observed on the front corner surfaces resulting from corner modification, as with the side surface. For buildings with recessed corners, the local pressure on corner surfaces was larger than that of side surfaces. Moreover, the average wind pressure was effectively reduced to 88.42% and 92.40% in RE1 on the windward surface and CH1 on the side surface, respectively.

Wind load is typically considered as one of the governing design loads acting on a structure. Understanding its nature is essential in evaluation of its action on the structure. Many codes and standards are founded on state of the art knowledge and include step by step procedures to calculate wind loads for various types of structures. One of the most accepted means for calculating wind load is using Gust Load Factor or base bending Moment Gust Load Factor (MGLF), where codes are adjusted based on local data available. Although local data may differ, the general procedure is the same. In this paper, ASCE 7-16 (2017), which is used as the main reference in the U.S., and Korean Building Code (KBC 2016) are compared in evaluation of wind loads. The primary purpose of this paper is to provide insight on each code from a structural engineering perspective. Herein, discussion focuses on where the two codes are compatible and differ. In evaluating the action of wind loads on a building, knowledge of the dynamic properties of the structure is critical. For this study, the design of four figurative highrise buildings with dual systems was analyzed.

In recent years, there has been a tendency towards renewable energy sources considering the damages caused by non-renewable energy resources to nature and humans. One of the renewable energy sources is wind and energy is obtained with the help of wind turbines. To determine the behavior of wind turbines under earthquake loads, dynamic characteristics are required. In this study, the differential transformation method is proposed to determine the free vibration analysis of wind turbines with a variable cross-section. The wind turbine is modeled as an equivalent variable continuous flexural beam and blade weight is considered as a point mass at the top of the structures. The differential equation representing the free vibration of the wind turbine is transformed into an algebraic equation with the help of differential transformation method and the angular frequencies and the mode shapes of the wind turbine are obtained by the help of the differential transformation method. In the study, a sample taken from the literature was solved with the presented method and the suitability of the method was investigated. The same wind turbine example also modeled by finite element modelling software, ABAQUS. Results of the finite element model and differential transformation method are compared with each other and the results are in good agreement.

Ultrapure ferritic stainless steel provides a new generation of long-span metal roof systems with continuous welding technology, which exhibits many unknown behaviors during wind excitation. This study focuses on the wind-resistant capacity of a new continuous welding stainless steel roof (CWSSR) system. Full-scale testing on the welding joints and the CWSSR system is performed under uniaxial tension and static ultimate wind uplift loadings, respectively. A finite element model is developed with mesh refinement optimization and is further validated with the testing results, which provides a reliable way of investigating the parameter effect on the wind-induced structural responses, namely, the width and thickness of the roof sheeting and welding height. Research results show that the CWSSR system has predominant wind-resistant performance and can bear an ultimate wind uplift loading of 10.4 kPa without observable failures. The welding joints achieve equivalent mechanical behaviors as those of base material is produced with the current of 65 A. Independent structural responses can be found for the roof sheeting of the CWSSR system, and the maximum displacement appears at the middle of the roof sheeting, while the maximum stress appears at the connection supports between the roof sheeting with a significant stress concentration effect. The responses of the CWSSR system are greatly influenced by the width and thickness of the roof sheeting but are less influenced by the welding height.

Modelling incompressible, neutrally stratified, barotropic, horizontally homogeneous and steady-state atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is an important aspect in computational wind engineering (CWE) applications. The ABL flow can be viewed as a balance of the horizontal pressure gradient force, the Coriolis force and the turbulent stress divergence. While much research has focused on the increase of the wind velocity with height, the Ekman layer effects, entailing veering — the change of the wind velocity direction with height, are far less concerned in wind engineering. In this paper, a modified k-epsilon model is introduced for the ABL simulation considering wind veering. The self-sustainable method is discussed in detail including the precursor simulation, main simulation and near-ground physical quantities adjustment. Comparisons are presented among the simulation results, field measurement values and the wind profiles used in the conventional wind tunnel test. The studies show that the modified k-epsilon model simulation results are consistent with field measurement values. The self-sustainable method is effective to maintain the ABL physical quantities in an empty domain. The wind profiles used in the conventional wind tunnel test have deficiencies in the prediction of upper-level winds. The studies in this paper support future practical super high-rise buildings design in CWE.