ABSTRACT
CFD models with advances in numerical modeling or wind tunnel experiments are now capable of simulating or predicting wind field in mountain gorge terrains. However, the terrain domain chosen to be analyzed is always limited and its range is generally determined by cutting down the extensive mountain gorge terrain at an appropriate distance from the bridge site, which brings about a sudden elevation jump between the boundary top of the terrain model and the floor of the wind tunnel or the bottom surface of the numerical computational domain. When the wind flows over the untreated model, flow obstruction and separation will occur over the terrain model edge, which will produce an unrealistic flow field and significant errors. Therefore, inputting reasonable inlet boundary conditions is the primary problem to study the wind environment for mountain gorge terrains and this has a great impact on the simulation results in wind tunnel tests or in numerical simulations.
