Numerical and experimental study of the aerodynamic characteristics around two-dimensional terrain with different slope angles

Abstract

Complicated terrain was considered and simplified as two-dimensional (2D) terrain in a dynamical downscaling model and a parametric wind field model for typhoons developed by the Shanghai Typhoon Institute. The 2D terrain was further modeled as uphill and downhill segments with various slope angles relative to the incoming flow. The wind speed ratios and pressure characteristics around the 2D terrain were numerically and experimentally investigated in this study. Aerodynamic characteristics of the 2D terrain with a limited-length upper surface were first investigated in the wind tunnel with sheared incoming flow. The corresponding numerical investigation was also conducted by using the commercial computational fluid dynamics code FLUENT with the realizable k-e turbulence model. Special efforts were made to maintain the inflow boundary conditions throughout the computational domain. Aerodynamic characteristics were then investigated for the ideal 2D terrain with an unlimited-length upper surface by using a numerical method with uniform incoming flow. Comparisons of the different terrain models and incoming flows from the above studies show that the wind pressure coefficients and the wind speed ratios are both affected by the slope angle. A negative peak value of the wind pressure coefficients exists at the escarpment point, where flow separation occurs, for the uphill and downhill terrain models with slope angles of 40° and 30°, respectively. Correspondingly, the streamwise wind speed ratios at the points above the escarpment point for the uphill terrain model increase with increasing slope angle, reach their peak values at the slope angle of α = 40° and decrease when the slope angle increases further. For the downhill terrain model, similar trends exist at the points above the escarpment point with the exception that the critical slope angle is a = 30°.