Course of
Computational Wind Engineering
MSc.
in Mathematics for Engineering Sciences
Ist
Faculty of Engineering - Politecnico di Torino.
Course type: MSc
course - Advanced Course
Point (ECTS ) 5
Scope and form: Lectures and project work.
Duration of
Course: 40 hrs (lectures) – 10
hrs (exercises under teaching supervision)
Type of
assessment: Written project work and oral examination
Optional
Prerequisites: Fluid
Dynamics, Dynamics of Structures, Numerical methods.
General course
objectives:
The Course approach in an unified manner the fundamentals in structural
dynamics and fluid dynamics in order to analyse mechanical systems
characterized by the strong coupling between wind and structure in the field of
civil engineering.
The Course is dedicated to the modelling and to the computational
simulation of the aerodynamic and aeroelastic behaviour of civil structures
subjected to the wind action, as tall buildings, towers or long-span bridges.
The Course, coherently with the MSc. in Mathematics for Engineering
Sciences goals, is intended to address the knowledge acquired by the students
in the previous courses in the civil engineering field.
Content:
The Course program is composed by
two main parts, dedicated to the analysis of the aerodynamic and aeroelastic
effects of the wind on the civil structures.
Each part is developed in two steps.
The first one is dedicated to the presentation of the phenomenological basis of
the studied flows and to introduce, if there exist, engineering analytical and
semi-empirical models able to describe the wind loads and the aeroelastic
response. Along the second step, the methods and tools required to
computationally simulate the above mentioned fluid flow or interaction
phenomena are described; the capability of the computational approach to
identify the empirical coefficients introduced in the engineering models is
evaluated.
I Part: Aerodynamic Phenomena in
Wind Engineering.
Introduction
to the aerodynamic phenomena of interest in civil engineering:
§
Wind modelling in the Atmospheric
Boundary Layer;
§
Bluff bodies aerodynamics. Boundary
layer separation, vortex shedding and wakes, aerodynamic interference
phenomena, 2D and 3D flows;
§
Method of analysis in Wind
Engineering: experimental and computational approaches.
Computational
simulation of separated turbulent flows around bluff bodies:
§
Discretization procedures (with
focus on the Finite Volumes Method);
§
Turbulence models (DNS, LES, RANS);
§
Methods for grid generation and
adaptation.
II Part: Aeroelastic Phenomena in
Wind Engineering.
Introduction
to the aeroelastic phenomena, classification and modelling:
§
torsional divergence;
§
buffeting;
§
vortex shedding and lock-in;
§
galloping;
§
flutter.
Computational
simulation of the Fluid - Structure Interaction:
§
approaches to the modelling of
coupled multiphysics systems. Weak and strong coupling.
§
Arbitrary Lagrangian – Eulerian form
of the Navier-Stokes equations. Dynamic and deformable computational grids;
§
Line-like structures modelling by
means of generalized single degree of freedom models.
Exercises
The exercises are addressed to the
formulation of a computational model facing a problem simple enough to match
with the teaching needs, widely studied by the scientific community in the past
but also representative of an actual application in civil engineering.
The computational simulation of the
turbulent flow around a motionless bluff body and an oscillating structure are
performed by using a commercial code. The exercise in the “computational wind
tunnel” involves, on the basis of the tutorial material prepared by the
teacher, the analysis of the problem from the phenomenological point of view,
the generation of the computational model, the simulation and the critical
analysis of the results.
Once the tutorial activity is
completed, each working group, composed by two students, is charged to
autonomously develop the following tasks:
- read a scientific paper appeared on an international journal on the
same topic of the exercise, summarize its content in a bibliographic
sheets (2 pages maximum);
- modify the value of a parameter of the computational model
developed during the guided exercises (numerical or modelling parameters,
characteristic number), repeat the computational simulation and compare
the obtained results with the reference ones obtained during the guided
exercises;
- write a final report in form of a scientific paper (six pages, in
English).
Expected
Competences
The computational simulation of the wind
effects on civil structures is an innovative topics in the fields of teaching,
advanced research and professional consulting. The Course is intended to
provide the basis for the strong formation of researchers and consultants with
specific and multidisciplinary skills.
