Project 3: Structural Wind Engineering

Jun.-Prof. Anastasia Athanasiou (Chair of Natural Hazards and Structural Resilience) & Prof. Guido Morgenthal (Chair of Modelling and Simulation of Structures)

This is a short course on structural wind engineering. During the lectures, the participants familiarize with the atmospheric boundary layer, wind loads and their effects on buildings and long-span bridges, current and next-generation wind design practice. Particular focus is given on tall building design and vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) of bridges. Knowledge is created in class and in labs, where participants work in groups to assess the performance of a high-rise building under life safety and service level wind loads. Hands on learning experience continues with experiments carried out in the wind tunnel of the Bauhaus University Weimar. A scaled model of a bluff-body bridge cross-section will be attached to a static force measuring unit in order to record the lift forces. From these forces, the participants determine the Strouhal number of the cross-section, which allows the calculation of the resonance wind speed. The scaled model will then be suspended from springs for dynamic motion, and the resonance wind speed determined will be checked under varying wind speeds, with particular focus given to the behavior of the bridge deck in the lock-in region.