Simulating high-translation-speed tornado-like vortex effects on building aerodynamics through a rapid traversing system

This paper presents the development of a rapid traversing system for WindEEE Dome, designed to investigate variations in flow characteristics and the transient aerodynamics of buildings subjected to translation speeds representative of full-scale tornadoes. A moving section of the floor was constructed with a 12.8 m track that spanned the test chamber. The track allows the movement of a cart and an elliptical aluminum baseplate on rails through the action of a servo-motor and a system of chains. The results of the first experimental campaign with the new system are examined in detail. The baseplate was equipped with pressure taps for flow characterization and fitted with a pressure model of a low-rise building to examine its transient aerodynamic response. Cobra Probes were installed to simultaneously measure the tornadic wind field samples. Several nominally identical repeats were carried out with the system translating through a spatially-stationary tornado-vortex with a swirl ratio of 0.76 for two different translation speed ( ∼ 1.5 m/s and ∼ 4.2 m/s). The traversing system was also used to simulate a quasi-static translation of the tornado-like flows; hence, effects of different levels of translation speed on flow characterization, and pressure distributions and forces of the building model are discerned.