Wind pressure measurements on a cube subjected to pulsed impinging jet flow

M.S. Mason, D.L. James and C.W. Letchford

Abstract

A pulsed impinging jet is used to simulate the gust front of a thunderstorm downburst. This work concentrates on investigating the peak transient loading conditions on a 30 mm cubic model submerged in the simulated downburst flow. The outflow induced pressures are recorded and compared to those from boundary layer and steady wall jet flow. Given that peak winds associated with downburst events are often located in the transient frontal region, the importance of using a non-stationary modelling technique for assessing peak downburst wind loads is highlighted with comparisons.

Key Words

thunderstorm; downburst; gust front; ring vortex loading; non-stationary loads.

Address

M.S. Mason School of Civil Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney NSW, Australia D.L. James Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX, USA C.W. Letchford School of Engineering, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

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