Wind tunnel testing of the effect of terrain on the wind characteristics of airport glide paths

Abstract

To study the effect of complex terrain on the wind characteristics of the glide paths at Hong Kong International Airport’s North Runway, wind tunnel testing was conducted in Tongji University’s TJ-3 boundary layer wind tunnel, and Cobra probes were used to measure the wind speed and wind direction at the North Runway glide paths. The effects of terrain on the wind characteristics, including turbulence intensity, turbulence integral scale, and mean headwind speed were analysed. The results show that the terrain fluctuations have a significant effect on the wind characteristics of the glide paths. The turbulence intensities in the cross-wind direction and the vertical direction increase with increasing turbulence intensity in the wind direction at the same altitude; the inflow may affect aircraft landing due to the decrease in headwind speed at glide path 25RA caused by the obstruction of certain terrain.