Vega-Behar, Pablo

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Comparison of roughness lengths and turbulence intensities measured in landfalling hurricanes
(2009) Vega-Behar, Pablo; Aponte-Bermúdez, Luis D.; College of Engineering; Godoy, Luis A.; López Rodríguez, Ricardo R.; Department of Civil Engineering; Gilbes, Fernando
An accurate estimate of surface roughness length is very important for many wind engineering applications. It is used in logarithmic wind profiles to determine wind speed in relation to height. It is also used to estimate turbulent properties of wind flow. Several estimation methods have been documented in literature. However, most are based on extratropical (straight) wind measurements taken over homogeneous fetches; conditions which may not properly approximate the turbulent structure of tropical wind systems passing over heterogeneous terrains. Recent availability of high-resolution wind data taken during hurricane passages enables the study of roughness lengths for several types of heterogeneous fetches. This work focuses on comparing different ways of computing roughness lengths directly from the data, with a roughness estimation framework based on the site’s geographic information and the Land Use and Land Cover classification. The accuracy of all estimations is discussed, and recommendations are made to refine the framework.