Aeroelastic wind tunnel investigations on rectangular-planed air-supported membrane structures

Abstract

This study implements aeroelastic wind tunnel experiments on rectangular-planed air-supported membrane structures. With the goal of identifying possible wind response patterns, experiments are conducted with a wide range of wind velocities, internal pressures, and membrane tensile stiffness, including cases close to similarity requirements for simulating prototypes. Wind pressure measurements on the rigid model are performed to serve as a reference, and during subsequent aeroelastic wind tunnel tests, time-averaged and fluctuating wind responses of air-supported membrane structures are observed to significantly increase with lower internal pressures, higher wind speeds, more incoming turbulence, and less membrane tensile stiffness. Two distinct patterns of wind response, buffeting, and aeroelastic instability, are observed within the aeroelastic wind tunnel experiments. These two patterns exhibit significant differences in terms of fluid–structure interaction mechanisms and statistics of structural wind responses. This research emphasizes the influences of membrane elasticity and incoming turbulence on variations of structural wind response patterns. Aeroelastic instability is observed on models with extreme flexibility and relatively lower incoming turbulence, while the buffeting pattern is observed with other configurations, including cases that approach the similarity requirements for simulating air-supported membrane structures in practice.