Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Downburst-Like Wind Fields: Spatiotemporal Characteristics and Turbulence Behavior from Wind Tunnel Experiments and CFD Simulation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15377/2409-9821.2026.13.5Keywords:
Turbulence structure, Downburst wind field, Wind tunnel experiment, Non-stationary wind characteristics, Wind engineering and structural wind loads.Abstract
Downburst is an extreme wind event caused by a thunderstorm downdraft that impinges upon the ground and subsequently forms a near-ground gust front, resulting in substantial economic losses and structural damage. Due to its pronounced discrepancies from synoptic winds, constructing downburst wind field models is crucial for the refined assessment of wind loads and structural safety. This study investigates the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of downburst-like wind fields based on active-controlled wind tunnel tests and numerical approach utilizing the large-eddy simulation (LES). The work primarily focuses on the disparities regarding mean and fluctuating wind characteristic between stationary flows and non-stationary outflows with various gust durations. The findings demonstrate a substantial concordance between the numerically simulated downburst wind fields and the experimental results. Compared with the stationary flows, the non-stationary cases exhibit pronounced time-varying characteristics across the mean wind profile and turbulence parameters including turbulence intensity, integral length scales, and fluctuating wind velocity spectra. Furthermore, an increase in the gust duration of non-stationary flows leads to a reduction in the peak time-varying mean velocity, while weakening the non-Gaussian features in the residual fluctuation and suppressing the peak energy of evolutionary power spectral density. The insights from this study are intended to deepen the comprehensive understanding of downburst wind field characteristics.
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