• Wind and Structures
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.101-129
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• 2017

Local transient extreme wind loads caused by group tower-related interference are among the major reasons that lead to wind-induced damage of super-large cooling towers. Four-tower arrangements are the most commonly seen patterns for super-large cooling towers. We considered five typical four-tower arrangements in engineering practice, namely, single row, rectangular, rhombic, L-shaped, and oblique L-shaped. Wind tunnel tests for rigid body were performed to determine the influence of different arrangements on static and dynamic wind loads and extreme interference effect. The most unfavorable working conditions (i.e., the largest overall wind loads) were determined based on the overall aerodynamic coefficient under different four-tower arrangements. Then we calculated the one-, two- and three-dimensional aerodynamic loads under different four-tower arrangements. Statistical analyses were performed on the wind pressure signals in the amplitude and time domains under the most unfavorable working conditions. On this basis, the non-Gaussian distribution characteristics of aerodynamic loads on the surface of the cooling towers under different four-tower arrangements were analyzed. We applied the Sadek-Simiu procedure to the calculation of two- and three-dimensional aerodynamic loads in the cooling towers under the four-tower arrangements, and the extreme wind load distribution patterns under the most unfavorable working conditions in each arrangement were compared. Finally, we proposed a uniform equation for fitting the extreme wind loads under the four-tower arrangements; the accuracy and reliability of the equation were verified. Our research findings will contribute to the optimization of the four-tower arrangements and the determination of extreme wind loads of super-large cooling towers.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.651-668
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• 2014

Wind tunnel tests are conducted to investigate the wind loads on vertical fixed-roof cylindrical tanks with a very low aspect ratio of 0.275, which is a typical ratio for practical tanks with a volume of $100,000m^3$. Both the flat-roof tank and the dome-roof tank are investigated in present study. The first four moments of the measured wind pressure, including the mean and normalized deviation pressure, kurtosis and skewness of the pressure signal, are obtained to study the feature of the wind loads. It is shown that the wind loads are closely related to the behavior of flow around the structure. For either tank, the mean wind pressures on the cylinder are positive on the windward area and negative on the sides and the wake area, and the mean wind pressures on the whole roof are negative. The roof configurations have no considerable influence on the mean pressure distributions of cylindrical wall in general. Highly non-Gaussian feature is found in either tank. Conditional sampling technique, envelope method, and the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis are employed to investigate the characteristics of wind loads on the cylinder in more detail. It is shown that the patterns of wind pressure obtained from conditional sampling are similar to the mean pressure patterns.An instantaneous pressure coefficient can present a wide range from the maximum value to the minimum value. The quasi-steady assumption is not valid for structures considered in this paper according to the POD analysis.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.163-178
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• 2023

The paper reviews and discusses the substantive changes to the ASCE 49-21 Standard, Wind Tunnel Testing for Buildings and Other Structures. The most significant changes are the requirements for wind field simulations that utilize (i) partial turbulence simulations, (ii) partial model simulations for the flow around building Appurtenances, along with requirements for determining wind loads on products that are used at multiple sites in various configurations. These modifications tend to have the effect of easing the precise scaling requirements for flow simulations because it is not generally possible to construct accurate models for small elements placed, for example, on large buildings at the scales typically available in boundary layer wind tunnels. Additional discussion is provided on changes to the Standard with respect to measurement accuracy and data acquisition parameters, such as duration of tests, which are also related to scaling requirements. Finally, research needs with respect to aerodynamic mechanisms are proposed, with the goal of improving the understanding of the role of turbulence on separated-reattaching flows on building surfaces in order to continue to improve the wind tunnel method for determining design wind loads.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.609-622
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• 2015

This study presents a dynamic response analysis of operational and parked wind turbines in order to gain better understanding of the roles of wind loads on turbine blades and tower in the generation of turbine response. The results show that the wind load on the tower has a negligible effect on the blade responses of both operational and parked turbines. Its effect on the tower response is also negligible for operational turbine, but is significant for parked turbine. The tower extreme responses due to the wind loads on blades and tower of parked turbine can be estimated separately and then combined for the estimation of total tower extreme response. In current wind turbine design practice, the tower extreme response due to the wind loads on blades is often represented as a static response under an equivalent static load in terms of a concentrated force and a moment at the tower top. This study presents an improved equivalent static load model with additional distributed inertial force on tower, and introduces the square-root-of-sum-square combination rule, which is shown to provide a better prediction of tower extreme response.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 2013

This study has analysed the ultimate loads acting on a wind turbine which is operating in a high turbulent flow condition because the ultimate loads are critical factors on the safe design of wind turbine. Since wind flow on the most parts of Korean mountainous are strongly influenced by complex configurations of the topography, turbulence intensity on somewhere is so stronger than an international design standard. For this reason, the characteristics of turbulent wind data collected from actual sites were analyzed and used for the ultimate load evaluation of the wind turbine. With the 270 design load cases on the international standards, the differences of ultimate loads on the wind turbine operating in the standard or high turbulent wind condition are calculated and compared for the an enhanced knowledge of the safe design basis. As are result, it is revealed the specific ultimate loads are strongly affected by the high turbulent wind conditions, thus the characteristics of turbulent flow must be considered during the design of wind turbine.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.7
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• pp.157-164
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• 2019

The wind tunnel test makes it possible to predict the wind loads for the wind resistant design. There are many methods to evaluate wind loads from data obtained from the wind tunnel test and these methods have advantages and disadvantages. In this study, two of these methods were analyzed and compared. One is the wind load evaluation method by fluctuating displacement and the other is the wind load evaluation method considering vertical profile of fluctuating wind force. The former method is evaluated as the sum of the mean wind load of the average wind force and the maximum value of the fluctuating wind load. The latter method is evaluated as the sum of the mean wind load and maximum value of the background wind load, and the maximum value of the resonant wind load. Two methods were applied to the wind tunnel test to compare the evaluated wind loads according to the two methods, with a maximum difference of about 1.2 times. The wind load evaluated by the method considering vertical profile of the fluctuating wind force (VPFWF) was larger than the wind load evaluated by the method by fluctuating displacement (FD). Especially, the difference of the wind load according to the two methods is large in the lower part of the building and the wind load is reversed at a specific height of the building. VPFWF of evaluating resonant wind loads and background wind loads separately is more reasonable.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.439-449
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• 2018

Wind loading of a tall building built amidst a group of buildings in urban environment is always greatly affected by shielding effects. Wind tunnel tests were carried out to assess the shielding provided by a row of low-rise or medium-rise buildings upstream a square-section tall building of height-to-breadth ratio 6. Mean and dynamic wind loads on the tall building were measured at different wind incidence angles and presented as interference factors (IFs). It is found that presence of a row of upstream buildings provides significant shielding to the tall building. At normal wind incidence, the mean along-wind loads and all components of fluctuating wind loads on the tall building are always reduced by shielding. Vortex shedding seems to still occur on the upper exposed part of the tall building but the vortex excitation levels are largely reduced. The degree of shielding is found to depend on a number of arrangement parameters of the row of upstream buildings. Empirical equations are proposed to quantify the shielding effect based on the wind tunnel data.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.525-541
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• 2016

An offshore wind turbine supported by a spar buoy floating platform is the subject of this study on tower and rotor extreme loads. The platform, with a 120-meter draft and assumed to be sited in 320 meters of water, supports a 5 MW wind turbine. A baseline model for this turbine developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is employed in stochastic response simulations. The support platform, along with the mooring system consisting of three catenary lines, chosen for loads modeling, is based on the "Hywind" floating wind turbine concept. Our interest lies in gaining an understanding of the dynamic coupling between the support platform motion and the turbine loads. We first investigate short-term response statistics using stochastic simulation for a range of different environmental wind and wave conditions. From this study, we identify a few "controlling" environmental conditions for which long-term turbine load statistics and probability distributions are established.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.127-142
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• 2021

Wind load acting on a standalone structure is different from that acting on a similar structure which is surrounded by other structures in close proximity. The presence of other structures in the surrounding can change the wind flow regime around the principal structure and thus causing variation in wind loads compared to a standalone case. This variation on wind loads termed as interference effect depends on several factors like terrain category, geometry of the structure, orientation, wind incident angle, interfering distances etc., In the present study, a three building configuration is considered and the mean pressure coefficients on each face of principle building are determined in presence of two interfering buildings. Generally, wind loads on interfering buildings are determined from wind tunnel experiments. Computational fluid dynamic studies are being increasingly used to determine the wind loads recently. Whereas, wind tunnel tests are very expensive, the CFD simulation requires high computational cost and time. In this scenario, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) technique and Support Vector Regression (SVR) can be explored as alternative tools to study wind loads on structures. The present study uses these data-driven approaches to predict mean pressure coefficients on each face of principle building. Three typical arrangements of three building configuration viz. L shape, V shape and mirror of L shape arrangement are considered with varying interfering distances and wind incidence angles. Mean pressure coefficients (Cp mean) are predicted for 45 degrees wind incidence angle through ANN and SVR. Further, the critical faces of principal building, critical interfering distances and building arrangement which are more prone to wind loads are identified through this study. Among three types of building arrangements considered, a maximum of 3.9 times reduction in Cp mean values are noticed under Case B (V shape) building arrangement with 2.5B interfering distance. Effect of interfering distance and building arrangement on suction pressure on building faces has also been studied. Accordingly, Case C (mirror of L shape) building arrangement at a wind angle of 45º shows less suction pressure. Through this study, it was also observed that the increase of interfering distance may increase the suction pressure for all the cases of building configurations considered.

• Journal of Wind Energy
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 2014

Primarily, tower loads of a wind turbine arise from aerodynamic effect and a top head mass. But sometime asymmetric loads of rotor also affect on the tower loads. Especially ice formation on two blades out of three causes the asymmetric loads, because the ice formation on blades lead to large rotating mass imbalance. This rotating mass imbalance of rotor affects tower fatigue loads. So design load cases of ice formation on blade should be considered in the fatigue design loads of the tower according to GL guideline 2010. This paper describes the change of tower fatigue loads following increase of tower height in the condition of ice formation. Finally, the optimal operation strategy is examined in order to reduce tower fatigue design loads.