Low level wind effects of the hangers at the Hong Kong International Airport

Abstract

In strong north to northwesterly winds associated with tropical cyclones, significant differences of the wind speeds ( 5 – 8 m/s) have been observed between the measurements of the north runway and south runway anemometers at the western part of the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA). From the simulation results of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, it is shown that the hangars between the two runways of HKIA could be a factor leading to the difference in the wind speeds,. Moreover, as found from the simulated wind field of this CFD model, the hangars could bring about significant variations of the winds at the western end of the south runway of HKIA that may affect the operation of the landing aircraft. Simulation results for a tropical cyclone case in 2008 would be discussed in this paper. They are found to be generally consistent with the wind data recorded onboard a landing aircraft and the pilot report of the winds experienced by this aircraft