Advances in Structural Wind Engineering at the University of Western Ontario, Canada

Since the sixties of the past century, the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Canada, has been a main source of knowledge and innovation in the field of Wind Engineering. This has been pioneered by Professor Alan Davenport who passed away on July 19, 2009, leaving a wealth of knowledge that has influenced the design codes globally. In this presentation, the Davenport’s wind loading chain will be presented together with the history of the establishment of the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory (BLWTL) at UWO. Since 1964, more than 2000 landmark projects have been carried out at the BLWTL through testing wind sensitive structures, such as skyscrapers, towers, and long span bridges. The presentation will highlight some of those projects and their unique features. While Davenport’s wind chain was based on a thorough probabilistic approach, it involved linearization assumptions for both the wind field and the structural response, which allowed to carry on solutions in the frequency domain. Also, wind tunnel tests focused on either small-scale rigid model or aeroelastic models to determine structural and cladding loads and/or to investigate various aeroelastic instability phenomena for slender structures. With the advancement of computational tools and the establishment of large-scale wind testing facilities, the research at UWO has extended to a new horizon. Some of the recent development will be presented including a ductility based nonlinear approach for the wind design of tall buildings, full-scale testing up to failure of low-rise buildings under simulated wind loads, nonlinear section testing of super long-span bridges, the use of tuned-liquid dampers to control the wind vibration of tall buildings, and research on double curvature long-span cable domes. Localized wind events, often referred to High Intensity Wind (HIW) events, include downbursts, which are associated with thunderstorms, and tornadoes. The first three-dimensional wind testing facility, the WindEEE dome, that can provide large-scale simulation of this type of wind was established at UWO in 2012. The presentation will highlight the capabilities of WindEEE and will present the outcomes of the research conducted on two types of HIW-sensitive structures, transmission lines and wind turbines. This research resulted in the establishment of the first specifications in the world that account for the effect of downbursts and tornadoes on transmission line structures, which was recently incorporated into the American Society of Civil Engineering guidelines.