Wind tunnel investigation on wind characteristics of flat and mountainous terrain

Wind tunnel test is often adopted to assess the site-specific wind characteristics for the design of bridges as suggested by current design standards. To investigate the wind characteristics of flat and mountainous terrain, two topographic models are tested in a boundary layer wind tunnel. The wind characteristics, including the vertical and horizontal mean wind speed distributions, the turbulence intensity, and the wind power spectra, are presented. They are investigated intensively in present study with the discussions on the effect of wind direction and the effect of topography. It is indicated that for flat terrain, the wind direction has negligible effect on the wind characteristics, however, the assumption of a homogenous wind field for the mountainous terrain is not applicable. Further, the non-homogeneous wind field can be defined based on a proposed approach if the wind tunnel test or on-site measurement is performed. The calculated turbulence intensities and wind power spectra by using the measured wind speeds are also given. It is shown that for the mountainous terrain, engineers should take into account the variability of the wind characteristics for design considerations.