The field measurement was conducted to observe the wind field data of West Pacific typhoon “Maria” in this research. With the application of ultrasonic anemometers installed in different heights (10 m, 80 m, 100 m) of the tower, the three dimensional wind speed data of typhoon “Maria” was acquired. In addition, vane-type anemometers were installed to validate the accuracy of the wind data from ultrasonic anemometers. Wind characteristics such as the mean wind profile, turbulence intensity, integral length scale, and wind spectrum are studied in detail using the collected wind data. The relationship between the gust factor and turbulence intensity was also studied and compared with the existing literature to demonstrate the characteristics of Maria. The statistical characteristics of the turbulence intensity and gust factor are presented. The corresponding conclusion remarks are expected to provide a useful reference for designing wind-resistant buildings and structures.

Stationary models are usually applied for wind characteristics analysis. However, nonstationarity has been found in the field measurements of typhoons in recent studies; therefore, using traditional models with stationary assumptions to conduct wind characteristics is inadequate. In this research, data acquisition of typhoon wind speeds and monsoon are conducted based on the wind field measurements. Wind speeds of typhoon “Maria” passing through Pintan, Fujian Province, China and the monsoon from 2017.10–2018.10 were obtained to investigate wind characteristics. The run test method is utilized to show that non-stationarity exists in both typhoon and monsoon wind speed, and the percent of non-stationary increases with the increase in time interval. Additionally, results show that stronger non-stationarity exists in typhoon wind speed compared with monsoons. Based on a self-adaptive procedure to extract time varying mean wind speed, a non-stationary model is established to compare with the non-stationary model, which has been applied in the traditional wind characteristic analysis. The fluctuating wind characteristics such as turbulence intensity, gust factor, turbulence integral scale, and wind speed spectrum are analyzed to compare the two models. Results show that the difference of such characteristics between the two models increases with the time interval, indicating the necessity of consideration of non-stationary models, especially for design specifications with larger time intervals. Influences of time intervals are investigated, and relevant recommendations are provided for wind resistance specifications. Our conclusions may provide reference for wind resistance design in engineering applications.

To explore the influence of bridge wind barriers, with their specific opening shapes and arrangements, on bridge deck wind fields and vehicle driving stability under different crosswinds, five bridge wind barrier schemes were designed. For two incoming wind speeds, the wind speed at different heights over three traffic lanes and the aerodynamic six-component force of the vehicle model were measured, and the influence of the wind barrier parameters on the vehicle driving stability was analyzed. The equivalent wind speed reduction coefficient of the wind barrier was compared with the dimensionless coefficients of the aerodynamic side force, roll moment, and aerodynamic lift to verify the accuracy of the shielding effect evaluation indices. The final conclusions provide a useful reference for designing bridge wind barriers.

Understanding the crosswind stability of cars under strong wind loads and research on wind resistance methods is important for improving the safety performance of wind-induced driving on bridges. Taking van-body trucks as the research object, numerical calculation methods and wind tunnel test methods are used to conduct the wind-induced driving safety analyses of van trucks on a cross-sea bridge. The influence of the structural parameters of the barrier-type wind barrier on the aerodynamic characteristics and straight-line driving stability of the trucks on the bridge is studied and analyzed quantitatively. The results show that the decrease in the porosity of the wind barrier can effectively reduce the average wind speed of the bridge deck, and increasing the height of the wind barrier can effectively reduce the wind speed and increase the occlusion height of the bridge deck. The lateral acceleration, yaw rate, and lateral displacement of trucks decrease with the decrease in the porosity of the wind barrier and decrease with the increase in the height of the wind barrier. The research conclusions can not only provide data support for wind-induced driving safety analysis and the wind-resistant design of bridges but also provide a new method to balance the requirements of bridge wind-induced driving safety and bridge wind-induced structure safety.

According to the Chinese Load Code, the wind load for the structural design is based on the T-year return period of the annual maximum 10-min average wind speed. Therefore, determining the accurate regional annual maximum 10-min average wind speed, distribution is extremely important and essential. In this article, a new approach named generalised unified probability plotting (GUPP) method is proposed to parametrically analyse the regional wind speed distribution. The historical data of wind speed from 1953 to 2015 at southeast coastal city Xiamen, the distribution and parameters of the average 10-min annual maximum wind speeds are obtained. From the analysis results, the annual maximum 10-min average wind speed can be best modelled by the Pearson-III distribution among several distributions examined in the study, including the Gumbel distribution which underlies the Chinese Load Code. To further determine the significance of the updated wind speed distribution (namely the Pearson III), the wind-induced pressures at different story-levels of a high-rise building in Xiamen is examined relative to the Code-recommended distribution. Results show that the wind pressures corresponding to the Chinese Load Code is much higher than those of the Pearson-III. The difference is significant and may induce unreasonably high wind loads for design.

The data presented in this article are the wind measurements acquired from a tower in Southeast China during typhoon Nesat (1709#) and typhoon Haitang (1710#). Three 3D ultrasonic anemometers Wind Master Pro were utilized to obtain 3D wind data. The anemometer works well with wind speed range of 0-65 m/s and wind angle range of 0-360°. Three direction wind speeds and wind angles were recorded per every 0.1 s. The present research analyzed wind characteristics based on recorded data. In this article, the detailed test set-up and data pre-processing methodology for the wind characteristics analysis are provided.