Pseudo-three dimensional Method for the Numerical Simulation of Oscillations of Line-like Structures Induced by Real Wind

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Guido Morgenthal
• Subject Area: Structural Engineering, Building Informatics and Construction Operation ; Fluid Mechanics
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 233410851

This project aims to develop a numerical method to efficiently simulate the aerodynamic excitation of line-like civil structures. This shall take the stochastic properties of the natural wind field in the atmospheric boundary layer, the fluid-structure interaction effects and the dynamic structural properties into account. The three-dimensional solution domain is here modelled by a pseudo-3D formulation.The method shall artificially generate spatially and temporally varying records of the wind speed vector field that satisfy the stochastic properties of the turbulent wind field. The solution domain is being resolved by slices arranged along the structure, in which two-dimensional numerical fluid dynamics simulations are performed and coupled to a three-dimensional structural dynamics model. The fluid dynamics analyses of the fluid-structure interaction are based on the Vortex Particle Method as a highly efficient method which has been extensively applied to problems in wind engineering. The coupling of unsteady wind with the fluid dynamics simulation is done using a new method for modelling turbulence introduced into the domain from upstream, modelled by additional vortex particles.This yields a method, which for the first time would allow to model all wind excitation mechanisms critical to the behaviour of towers, high-rise buildings and long-span bridges consistently, just neglecting specifically along-structure aerodynamic effects.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants