Modelling Turbulence
In November 1940, the world was shocked as it witnessed the devastating collapse of the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge in Washington, USA. At the time this was the third largest bridge of its type in the world and it had been open for traffic for just a few months. The bridge had suffered violent turbulence during high winds, but this extreme weather event eventually led to the collapse of the bridge when turbulence caused a large support cable at its centre to snap.
Now, engineers at The University of Nottingham are using advanced computational analysis techniques which could help us to understand the turbulent effects on suspension and cable-stayed bridges when rocked by this powerful force of nature.
In the past, designers have used a number of techniques to help prevent these sorts of disasters, mainly centred on wind tunnel modelling and mathematical analysis. Both have drawbacks – wind tunnel modelling is time-consuming and expensive and mathematical analysis has to approximate full equations to allow for solutions.
Nottingham’s Computational Fluid Dynamics Group is using high performance computing to increase the type and complexity of simulations that can be undertaken to model bridge responses.
Combining techniques predicting fluid flow with bridge response in various weather conditions, full-scale virtual models of bridges can be built and tested for destruction, offering a radical, new solution for architectural engineers and designers. These simulations – testing larger bridges, faster winds and with greater accuracy – are the most detailed to have ever taken place and could provide answers to one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics; that of understanding turbulence and representing it in computer models.
Watch our film on Modelling Turbulence
Key Research Group