Large eddy simulation of wind pressures on a 600-m-high skyscraper and comparison with field measurements during super typhoon mangkhut

Abstract

Super Typhoon Mangkhut struck the coastal cities in Southeast China on September 16, 2018, destroying many glass curtain walls of tall buildings. It calls for more investigations of the wind loads on tall buildings during strong tropical cyclones to reduce building damages. Following the field measurements of wind effects on a 600-m-high skyscraper in Shenzhen, China, during Super Typhoon Mangkhut, this study aims to reproduce the wind effects on the supertall building during Mangkhut by large eddy simulation (LES). A wide range of surrounding buildings from the target supertall building (within a radius of 5 km) is explicitly constructed for the LES. The wind profiles obtained from a 356-m-high meteorological tower in Shenzhen and those given in the local design load code are used to set the inflow conditions in the LES. The wind pressures on the supertall building simulated by the LES and monitored by the field measurements are compared and analysed, including their mean, root mean square, peak, probability density function, power spectral density, and correlation. This combined study of numerical simulation and field measurement is an impetus to promote the role of computational fluid dynamics in predictions of the wind effects on high-rise buildings under extreme wind conditions.