Wind tunnel modeling of flow over mountainous valley terrain

Abstract

Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to investigate the wind characteristics in the mountainous valley terrain with 4 simplified valley models and a 1:500 scale model of an existing valley terrain in the simulated atmospheric neutral boundary layer model. Measurements were focused on the mean wind flow and longitudinal turbulence intensity. The relationship between hillside slopes and the velocity speed-up effect were studied. By comparing the preliminary results obtained from the simplified valley model tests and the existing terrain model test, some fundamental information was obtained. The measured results indicate that it is inappropriate to describe the mean wind velocity profiles by a power law using the same roughness exponent along the span wise direction in the mountainous valley terrain. The speed-up effect and the significant change in wind direction of the mean flow were observed, which provide the information necessary for determining the design wind speed such as for a long-span bridge across the valley. The longitudinal turbulence intensity near the ground level is reduced due to the speed-up effect of the valley terrain. However, the local topographic features of a more complicated valley terrain may cause significant perturbation to the general wind field characteristics in the valley.