Turbulence effects on the aerodynamic forces acting on railway vehicles by means of wind tunnel experimental study

The present research work is based on an experimental campaign of wind tunnel tests aimed at investigating the crosswind aerodynamic of a lightweight railway vehicle. The performed tests allow to measure the aerodynamic forces on the vehicles for different wind exposures and over a wide range of Reynolds number. In particular the aerodynamic admittance functions are computed for different wind conditions by varying the turbulence intensity indexes and the integral length scales of the simulated wind flow; the final aim of the paper is to validate a numerical model which is able to reproduce the equivalent forces exerted on the vehicle in presence of turbulent flow conditions.