Simulation of a spatially correlated turbulent velocity field using biorthogonal decomposition

This paper presents a method for generating a turbulent velocity field that can be used as an input for the temporal simulation in wind-excited structure problems. Temporal simulations become necessary when nonlinear behaviour, in the structure or in aeroelastic forces, must be accounted for. The main difficulty is then to reproduce correctly the statistical properties of the atmospheric turbulence, especially the spatial correlation. These properties constitute here the targets that the generated signal has to satisfy. We propose to use the biorthogonal decomposition technique which possesses interesting features to reach this objective, notably the space–time symmetry. Moreover, the convergence in energy is obtained rapidly with few terms of the decomposition, particularly in the low-frequency range. Thus the method is found suitable for application to large civil engineering structures, such as bridges. Examples are provided for two different kinds of wind.