High Resolution Wind Flow Field Analysis around Power Transmission Lines Based on Computational Fluid Dynamics Method

The power transmission lines are vulnerable under high intensity winds such as typhoon. To evaluate the risk of transmission lines under typhoon, it's necessary to know the exact speed of approaching wind at any location. In the paper, computational fluid dynamics method was proposed to obtain the high-resolution flow field around an actual transmission line which was attacked by typhoon. The terrain where the transmission line located was modeled. Speed-up ratio was used to evaluate the effect of the terrain on the wind. The results show that wind speed can be drastically affected by the complex terrain, and cause significantly different wind loads on each tower, which explain the collapse of towers at certain locations.