The buffeting wind loading of structural members at an arbitrary attitude in the flow

Abstract

Abstract The fluctuating buffeting load (per unit length) is established for a structural member at an arbitrary attitude in the flow, i.e. the angle of incidence and the yaw angle may be substantially different from zero. The formulation is based on a regular “quasi-steady ” linearized theory for a structure in motion, and the relevant loading components (projections), conveniently split into mean, turbulence induced and motion-dependent parts, comprise all the well-known buffeting terms as well as the basic terms regarding galloping and divergence instability. The loading is expressed both in body axes and in flow axes. Auto-spectral density functions for the fluctuating loads from wind turbulence and a proposition for spatially general calculation of co-coherence are included. The solution strategy in a general frequency domain formulation is briefly touched upon. Possible further improvements of the theory are also indicated.