engleski

Wind loading and its effects on wind barriers

One of sections on the motorway connecting Zagreb and Split is 25 kilometers long section from Sveti Rok Tunnel to Maslenica Bridge. It passes through rough relief where Velebit Mountain meets Adriatic coast which is the main reason for the strong wind genesis. The strongest wind is bora and it can reach speed up to 69 m/s. It is turbulent and also quite unpredictable wind because of its gusty nature. Bora directly influences motorway service in such a manner that can cause vehicle’ s instability and overturning. This is not acceptable from the point of neither traffic safety or the economic penalty of closing motorway section during strong wind. This paper will shortly present this complex project and experiences gained from this unique Croatian project. At the beginning of this project prototypes of wind protection structures were developed. Since wind protection structures are even rare in the world and this is the first such project in Croatia, designed prototypes were tested on physical models in wind tunnels and later so-called experimental fields were built near the motorway in order to test them in scale 1:1 in real conditions. Wind barriers were designed using Eurocode and mean wind speed obtained from mathematical model of the airflow in mentioned region. Results of wind tunnel testing and measurements on structures on experimental fields will be presented and discussed. Also results of dynamic measurements with specially designed wheel equipped with measurement set will be presented and compared to predicted efficiency of wind barriers.

wind loading; Eurocode; reference wind speed; wind barrier

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