Start Date
2023
Description
Tornadoes move and evolve throughout their lifetime, causing several types of forces against objects. Although vehicles are observed to fly in real tornadoes, simulating this experimentally and numerically has been very difficult – the vehicles do not seem to want to fly. We studied the effect of pressure gradient forces. These have typically been ignored in past simulations, so we estimated them to see if they add the missing force to get things to fly. Some researchers have made mathematical models of tornado wind fields, so we used those models to estimate pressure gradient forces. We also used some full-scale field data and some CFD simulation results to estimate pressure gradient forces.
Recommended Citation
Haan, Fred and Lee, Minji, "What about Tornadoes Makes Cars Fly?" (2023). Summer Research. 27.
https://digitalcommons.calvin.edu/summer_research/2023/Posters/27
Included in
What about Tornadoes Makes Cars Fly?
Tornadoes move and evolve throughout their lifetime, causing several types of forces against objects. Although vehicles are observed to fly in real tornadoes, simulating this experimentally and numerically has been very difficult – the vehicles do not seem to want to fly. We studied the effect of pressure gradient forces. These have typically been ignored in past simulations, so we estimated them to see if they add the missing force to get things to fly. Some researchers have made mathematical models of tornado wind fields, so we used those models to estimate pressure gradient forces. We also used some full-scale field data and some CFD simulation results to estimate pressure gradient forces.