Characteristics of intense winds in mountain area based on field measurement: Focusing on thunderstorm winds

• Published in: Journal of wind engineering and industrial aerodynamics Vol. 190; pp. 166 - 182
• Main Authors: Huang, Guoqing, Jiang, Yan, Peng, Liuliu, Solari, Giovanni, Liao, Haili, Li, Mingshui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2019
• Subjects: Field measurement; Mountain terrain; Thermally developed wind; Thunderstorm wind; Wind characteristics; Wind classification; Thunderstorm wind; Field measurement; Wind characteristics; Wind classification; Mountain terrain; Thermally developed wind
• ISSN: 0167-6105; 1872-8197
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jweia.2019.04.020

With the development of mountain areas, more wind-sensitive infrastructures are constructed. In the design of these infrastructures, the wind loading cannot be accurately obtained from the code based on the flat area. Hence, it is of great importance to study the mountain wind characteristics. In this study, the wind field measurement was initiated in a mountain area of western China. After the examination of the measured data, two typical wind events including the thunderstorm wind and thermally developed wind are highlighted. To extract and separate these wind events, an automatic classification method is proposed. The thunderstorm wind is analyzed in order to capture the rapid variation of its maximum wind speed, mean temperature and mean humidity through the boxplot method while the analysis of thermally developed winds relies on the correlation between the mean wind speed and mean temperature. Since the thunderstorm wind is relatively more important for wind engineering, its wind characteristic is focused hereafter and analyzed in detail based on the ultrasonic anemometer data. The characteristics of the thermally developed wind and other wind will be the matter of further studies and investigations. Results show that the characteristics of the thunderstorm wind measured in the mountainous area have no significant difference in comparison with those in the flat area. Due to the limited data, the above results deserve further investigations when more measurements become available. •Field measurement was conducted to study intense wind characteristics in mountain.•Thunderstorm and thermally developed winds (TW, TDW) are spotted in mountain.•TW and TDW are separated out by the proposed automatic classification method.•Transient characteristics of TW in mountain area are well discussed.•Characteristics of TW in mountain area are found to be similar to those in flat area.