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Article
Influence of Turbulence Modeling on Cfd Simulation Results of Tornado-Structure Interaction
Wind and Structures, An International Journal
  • Ryan Honerkamp
  • Zhi Li
  • Kakkattukuzhy M. Isaac, Missouri University of Science and Technology
  • Guirong Grace Yan, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Abstract

Tornadic wind flow is inherently turbulent. A turbulent wind flow is characterized by fluctuation of the velocity in the flow field with time, and it is a dynamic process that consists of eddy formation, eddy transportation, and eddy dissipation due to viscosity. Properly modeling turbulence significantly increases the accuracy of numerical simulations. The lack of a clear and detailed comparison between turbulence models used in tornadic wind flows and their effects on tornado induced pressure demonstrates a significant research gap. To bridge this research gap, in this study, two representative turbulence modeling approaches are applied in simulating real-world tornadoes to investigate how the selection of turbulence models affects the simulated tornadic wind flow and the induced pressure on structural surface. To be specific, LES with Smagorinsky-Lilly Subgrid and k-ω are chosen to simulate the 3D full-scale tornado and the tornado-structure interaction with a building present in the computational domain. To investigate the influence of turbulence modeling, comparisons are made of velocity field and pressure field of the simulated wind field and of the pressure distribution on building surface between the cases with different turbulence modeling.

Department(s)
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Second Department
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Comments
National Science Foundation, Grant 1455709
Keywords and Phrases
  • CFD,
  • civil engineering,
  • pressure,
  • tornado,
  • turbulence models,
  • velocity
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2023, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
8-1-2022
Publication Date
01 Aug 2022
Citation Information
Ryan Honerkamp, Zhi Li, Kakkattukuzhy M. Isaac and Guirong Grace Yan. "Influence of Turbulence Modeling on Cfd Simulation Results of Tornado-Structure Interaction" Wind and Structures, An International Journal Vol. 35 Iss. 2 (2022) p. 131 - 146 ISSN: 1598-6225; 1226-6116
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/guirong-yan/53/