Design criteria of wind barriers for traffic. Part 1: Wind barrier performance

This study investigates the design criteria required for wind barriers to protect vehicles running on an expressway under a high side wind. At the first stage of this study, the lateral deviations of vehicles in crosswinds were computed from the commercial software, CarSim and TruckSim, and the critical wind speeds for a car accident were then evaluated from a predefined car accident index. The critical wind speeds for driving stability were found to be 35 m/s for a small passenger car, yet 30 m/s for a truck and a bus. From the wind tunnel tests, the minimum height of a wind barrier required to reduce the wind speed by 50% was found to be 12.5% of the road width. In the case of parallel bridges, the placement of two edge wind barriers plus one wind barrier at center was recommended for a separation distance larger than 20 m (four lanes) and 10 m (six lanes) respectively, otherwise two wind barriers were recommended.