Wind and Structures

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Deriving vertical velocity in tornadic wind field from radar-measured data and improving tornado simulation by including vertical velocity at velocity inlet

  • Yi Zhao (Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology) ;
  • Guirong Yan (Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology) ;
  • Ruoqiang Feng (The Key Laboratory of Concrete and Prestressed Concrete Structures of the Ministry of Education, Southeast University) ;
  • Zhongdong Duan (School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology) ;
  • Houjun Kang (College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Guangxi University)
  • Received : 2023.05.30
  • Accepted : 2023.09.20
  • Published : 2024.04.25
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Abstract

In a tornadic wind field, the vertical velocity component in certain regions of tornadoes can be significant, forming one of the major differences between tornadic wind fields and synoptic straight-line wind fields. To better understand the wind characteristics of tornadoes and properly estimate the action of tornadoes on civil structures, it is important to ensure that all the attributes of tornadoes are captured. Although Doppler radars have been used to measure tornadic wind fields, they can only directly provide information on quasi-horizontal velocity. Therefore, lots of numerical simulations and experimental tests in previous research ignored the vertical velocity at the boundary. However, the influence of vertical velocity in tornadic wind fields is not evaluated. To address this research gap, this study is to use an approach to derive the vertical velocity component based on the horizontal velocities extracted from the radar-measured data by mass continuity. This approach will be illustrated by using the radar-measured data of Spencer Tornado as an example. The vertical velocity component is included in the initial inflow condition in the CFD simulation to assess the influence of including vertical velocity in the initial inflow condition on the entire tornadic wind field.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The authors greatly appreciate the financial support from National Science Foundation, through the project, "Damage and Instability Detection of Civil Large-scale Space Structures under Operational and Multi-hazard Environments" (Award No.: 1455709), and two other projects (#1940192 and #2044013). The authors also greatly appreciate the financial support from the VORTEX-SE Program within the NOAA/OAR Office of Weather and Air Quality under Grant No. NA20OAR4590452.

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