• Wind and Structures
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.65-87
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• 2016

The wind velocity profile over the height of a structure in high intensity wind (HIW) events, such as downbursts, differs from that associated with atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) winds. Current design codes for lattice transmission structures contain only limited advice on the treatment of HIW effects, and structural design is carried out using wind load profiles and response factors derived for ABL winds. The present study assesses the load-deformation curve (capacity curve) of a transmission tower under modeled downburst wind loading, and compares it with that obtained for an ABL wind loading profile. The analysis considers nonlinear inelastic response under simulated downburst wind fields. The capacity curve is represented using the relationship between the base shear and the maximum tip displacement. The results indicate that the capacity curve remains relatively consistent between different downburst scenarios and an ABL loading profile. The use of the capacity curve avoids the difficulty associated with defining a reference wind speed and corresponding wind profile that are adequate and applicable for downburst and ABL winds, thereby allowing a direct comparison of response under synoptic and downburst events. Uncertainty propagation analysis is carried out to evaluate the tower capacity by considering the uncertainty in material properties and geometric variables. The results indicated the coefficient of variation of the tower capacity is small compared to those associated with extreme wind speeds.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.339-359
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• 2019

Pre-stressed concrete poles are among the supporting systems used to support transmission lines. It is essential to protect transmission line systems from harsh environmental attacks such as downburst wind events. Typically, these poles are designed to resist synoptic wind loading as current codes do not address high wind events in the form of downbursts. In the current study, the behavior of guyed pre-stressed concrete Transmission lines is studied under downburst loads. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first investigation to assess the behaviour of guyed pre-stressed concrete poles under downburst events. Due to the localized nature of those events, identifying the critical locations and parameters leading to peak forces on the poles is a challenging task. To overcome this challenge, an in-house built numerical model is developed incorporating the following: (1) a three-dimensional downburst wind field previously developed and validated using computational fluid dynamics simulations; (2) a computationally efficient analytical technique previously developed and validated to predict the non-linear behaviour of the conductors including the effects of the pretension force, sagging, insulator's stiffness and the non-uniform distribution of wind loads, and (3) a non-linear finite element model utilized to simulate the structural behaviour of the guyed pre-stressed concrete pole considering material nonlinearity. A parametric study is conducted by varying the downbursts locations relative to the guyed pole while considering three different span values. The results of this parametric study are utilized to identify critical downburst configurations leading to peak straining actions on the pole and the guys. This is followed by comparing the obtained critical load cases to new load cases proposed to ASCE-74 loading committee. A non-linear failure analysis is then conducted for the three considered guyed pre-stressed concrete transmission line systems to determine the downburst jet velocity at which the pole systems fail.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.413-423
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• 2023

Wind turbines are usually steel hollow structures that can be vulnerable to dramatic failures due to high-intensity wind (HIW) events, which are classified as a category of localized windstorms that includes tornadoes and downbursts. Analyzing Wind Turbines (WT) under tornadoes is a challenging-to-achieve task because tornadoes are much more complicated wind fields compared with the synoptic boundary layer wind fields, considering that the tornado's 3-D velocity components vary largely in space. As a result, the supporting tower of the wind turbine and the blades will experience different velocities depending on the location of the event. Wind farms also extend over a large area so that the probability of a localized windstorm event impacting one or more towers is relatively high. Therefore, the built-in-house numerical code "HIW-WT" has been developed to predict the straining actions on the blades considering the variability of the tornado's location and the blades' pitch angle. The developed HIWWT numerical model incorporates different wind fields that were generated from developed CFD models. The developed numerical model was applied on an actual wind turbine under three different tornadoes that have different tornadic structure. It is found that F2 tornado wind fields present significant hazard for the wind turbine blades and have to be taken into account if the hazardous impact of this type of unexpected load is to be avoided.