Numerical simulation research on safe dam construction in wind environments

Abstract

During the construction of a concrete dam, constant strong winds pose a safety risk to the operation of cable cranes, making it difficult to safely place concrete buckets and endangering personnel and property. However, in previous studies, safe operation strategies of cable cranes that did not consider wind conditions had been mainly developed. In this paper, a numerical simulation of the wind environment during the construction of a hydropower station dam project was presented using a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics method. The wind characteristics of the cable crane operating area are analyzed, and both local and full-section windproof measures are performed. The research findings indicate that full-section windproof measures provide better protection for cable cranes than local windproof measures. The latter only offer sufficient protection when the dam crest elevation is below 700 m. Compared with natural conditions, the low wind speed area of full-section windbreak measures is 10–15 times that of natural conditions. It is 3–10 times that of local wind protection measures. These results will offer significant reference value for similar projects.