LIDAR observations of building wakes at the Hong Kong International Airport and their numerical simulations

Short-range LIDARs are used in a novel study of building-related airflow disturbances at an operating airport. The airflow disturbances including building wakes, waves, and streaks of higher/lower wind speeds. Their potential impact on the aircraft operation is briefly discussed, and attempts have been made to trace their potential origin by using mesoscale-computation fluid dynamics coupled modelling system. It is found that such airflow features generally do not have significant impact on the aircraft, but the strategically placed short-range LIDARs are useful in monitoring these features, which have never been observed at the Hong Kong International Airport before using the long-range LIDARs. Directions for further studies have also been briefly discussed. • Building wakes have been captured by Doppler LIDARs at the Hong Kong International Airport. • General features of the building wakes are captured by CFD model. • The building wakes are not found to pose direct threat to the operation of the aircraft.