CFD study towards a solution for wind speed gradient reduction by large wind screens near a car carrier port

Abstract eng:
For the construction of a rail track, three wind screens will be demolished near the Brittania harbor at the Port of Rotterdam. These wind screens were built in 1985 to protect large car carriers from high wind exposure, since these ships have a large windage area. Wind screens were built over a length of 1750 m with different shapes and sizes and openings in-between, acting as a porous screen. The wind screens under consideration here have the shape of a half cylinder, with a diameter of 18 m and a height of 25 m. The space in-between the wind screens is 12 m. Removing three wind screens will open up a 102 m wide section between the remaining wind screens. To study the influence of this opening, 3D RANS CFD simulations are performed for two main wind directions, West and Southwest. A computational grid is created based on international Best Practice guidelines. The total domain dimensions are L x W x H = 1290 x 1377 x 150 m3 and consists of approximately 2.5 million cells. The CFD simulations show that locally, where ships proceed their turn into the Brittania harbor, wind speed is amplified by a factor four compared to the current situation, for west winds. Both high wind speed and spatial gradients in wind velocity is unfavorable. Therefore several alternative solutions are proposed and evaluated. These alternatives include shifted wind screens, the performance of which is compared to the current situation. It is concluded that building an alternative with shifted wind screens can result in wind conditions comparable to the current wind conditions, showing low wind speed gradients.

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