Outline and Fundamental Characteristics of Tornado-like Wind Simulator

Abstract

The authors developed the tornado-like wind simulator in order to experimentally evaluate wind hazard induced by tornado. This paper shows the outline of the simulator and fundamental characteristics of generated tornado-like vortices. Results of particle image velocimetry and wind pressure measurements illustrated that characteristics of the vortices can be agreeable with that of Rankine vortex model. With respect to fluctuate wind velocity fields, POD analysis was applied to tangential wind velocity. Two types of mode characteristics were obtained from first three modes.