Effects of turbulence intensity and integral length scale on wind-induced vibrations of a three-dimensional aeroelastic square cylinder

Abstract

Despite a wealth of prior research on the effects of free-stream turbulence (FST) on the aerodynamics of square cylinders, there is limited knowledge about their aeroelasticity such as characteristics of wind-induced vibrations that vary with the FST properties. This paper focuses on the investigation of the effects of FST properties including longitudinal turbulence intensity and integral length scale on the wind-induced vibrations of a three-dimensional (3D) aeroelastic square cylinder with an aspect ratio of 10 (a super-tall building model). Through wind tunnel testing, displacements of the aeroelastic model are measured in smooth flow and four turbulent flows to experimentally investigate its characteristics of fluid-solid interaction, including along- and across-wind vibrations, especially vortex-induced vibration and galloping. The effects of the turbulence intensity with a higher-level than previous studies are also investigated. The results show that the root-mean-square (RMS) displacements of the along-wind responses increase with the increase of turbulence intensity and are not affected by integral length scale. For the across-wind responses, in the non-lock-in region, the RMS displacements generally increase with the increase of turbulence intensity. In the lock-in region, the RMS displacements remain unchanged with the increase of turbulence intensity, while increase with the increase of integral length scale. This paper aims to improve the comprehension of the effects of FST on the wind-induced vibrations of 3D square cylinders and to furnish valuable insights for the wind-resistant design of slender structures, such as supertall buildings.