LARGE EDDY SIMULATION OF A TORNADO FLOW AROUND A TRAIN

Conference poster, 2017

A tornado is defined as a destructive rotating column of air extending from a cloud to the ground. Tornadoes can cause derailment or overturning of trains. At least three train-turnover accidents in Japan are suspected to have been caused by tornadoes or crosswinds. Some experiments and simulations about effects of a crosswind have been studied [1]. However there are almost no studies about the aerodynamic forces acting on a train by a tornado. Therefore, the large eddy simulation (LES) and the experiments were conducted to investigate how a tornado flow acts on a train and the results were compared.