Ensemble LES Analysis of Gust Occurrence in an Urban Area During Typhoon Hagibis
Please login to view abstract download link
In meteorology, extensive research has revealed the detailed flow characteristics in destructive tropical cyclones, such as distinctive vertical wind profile near the eyewall with a low-level wind speed maximum, and coherent structures including horizontal roll-shaped vortices in the boundary layer. These phenomena may contribute to localized strong winds and near-ground damage. However, despite their significance, there has been limited research on the influence of meteorological disturbances on the near-ground region and the quantification of uncertainties in the phenomena for wind engineering purposes, due to the computational resorces required. As a feasible study, the authors conducted a five-member ensemble large eddy (LES) simulation analysis [1] of Tokyo (6km*3km) using inflow turbulence data derived from downscaling the five highest wind members selected from the extensive 1000-member ensemble dataset of Typhoon Hagibis (2019) at a 1-km resolution, provided by Meteorological Research Institute. The simulation revealed different vortex formation in the boundary layer and wind speed fluctuations at near-ground level, depending on the distance from the typhoon center and wind direction changes during the storm passage (Fig 1a). At the maximum wind radius, longitudinal vortices caused ~2 min cycle fluctuations at the near-ground level, while inside the radius, lateral vortices in broad wind bands led to shorter ~50 s fluctuations in very long variations (Fig 1b). Strong wind trajectories provided evidence of near-ground gusts generated by upper air downdrafts influenced by meteorological disturbances. These downdrafts were identified as a cause of exceptionally high winds in the urban area (Fig 1c). In this study, we performed an ensemble LES analysis of the urban area, incorporating a larger number of members while taking into account the original probability distribution. The probabilistic properties of strong gust occurrence in the urban area and associated meteorological field are discussed in detail. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We express our gratitude to RIKEN R-CCS for providing the unified numerical flow solver CUBE. This work used the computational resources of supercomputer Fugaku in the HPCI System Research Projects (Project ID: hp210262). REFERENCES [1] M. Kawaguchi and T. Tamura. Predicting Wind Damage in a City During a Typhoon: A Meteorological Model/LES Approach, 76th Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, T43.0004, 2023.