Comparative study of analytical models of single-cell tornado vortices based on simulation data with different swirl ratios

The analytical model of tornado vortices plays an essential role in tornado wind description and tornado-resistant design of civil structures. However, there is still a lack of guidance for the selection and application of tornado analytical models since they are different from each other. For single-cell tornado vortices, this study conducts a comparative study on the velocity characteristics of the analytical models based on numerically simulated tornado-like vortices (TLV). The single-cell stage TLV is first generated by Large-eddy simulations (LES). The spatial distribution of the three-dimensional mean velocity of the typical analytical tornado models is then investigated by comparison to the TLV with different swirl ratios. Finally, key parameters are given as functions of swirl ratio for the direct application of analytical tornado models to generate full-scale tornado wind field. Results show that the height of the maximum radial mean velocity is more appropriate to be defined as the boundary layer thickness of the TLV than the height of the maximum tangential mean velocity. The TLV velocity within the boundary layer can be well estimated by the analytical model. Simple fitted results show that the full-scale maximum radial and tangential mean velocity increase linearly with the swirl ratio, while the radius and height corresponding to the position of these two velocities decrease non-linearly with the swirl ratio.