2013 Volume 61 Issue 6 Pages 159-166
Low-level turbulence around airport poses a potential hazard to aircraft operations such as take-off and landing. An advisory system for such atmospheric turbulence is of great help in safe airport operations. Aiming for a part of the advisory system, we investigate terrain-induced low-level turbulence at Shonai airport by an integrated approach of meteorological model prediction and high resolution large eddy simulation. The predicted results by the integrated system are validated against Doppler radar observations focusing on strong-wind events. The results revealed that low-level turbulence is triggered by a hill located on the north side of the runway. Furthermore, the results showed the extent of the low-level turbulence in the wake of the hill, that is, the turbulent area increases vertically as well as horizontally in the downwind direction. The magnitude and the direction of winds vary in short period of time due to the turbulent nature of the terrain-induced turbulence. A simplified model is employed to estimate the vertical load of aircraft along a flight path from the predicted turbulent wind field. These findings would be used to predict the hazardous area to aircraft operations, which is an important part of the advisory system.
