TIME
15:00, June 27th, 2024
LOCATION
Room 322, School of Transportation
INTRODUCTION
Due to climate change, extreme tropical cyclones (TCs) are becoming increasingly frequent. The extreme winds, waves and flooding have caused extensive damage to critical civil infrastructure systems. To build robust multi-hazard resilient residential communities, it is essential to clearly understand extreme TC induced multiple hazards (winds, surge, waves) and to quantify their loading effects. In this research, we have developed a couple of LES (large eddy simulation)-based computational models to simulate extreme TC induced multiple hazards. First, a high-fidelity high-resolution hurricane boundary layer model is developed to simulate hurricane winds that are always non-stationary and more turbulent. The simulated wind field is validated against observational datasets. Second, to quantify the combined wind-wave loading effects on structures, we have developed a two-phase flow model to simulate coupled wind-wave flow fields. Wind turbulence over nonbreaking and breaking waves is modeled and analyzed. It is found that wave profiles and breaking can greatly influence the local wind field characteristics. Third, the developed LES-based computational models are applied to simulate wind and wave effects on engineering structures, e.g., elevated low-rise buildings and offshore wind turbines. Research results indicate that the developed LES models can reveal the wind and wave fields characteristics variation near structures and satisfactorily predict the aerodynamic and hydrodynamic loading on elevated low-rise buildings and offshore wind turbines. Under extreme conditions, the wind-wave interaction will significantly increase the combined wind-wave loading and hence needs to be considered.