Characterizing Turbulence in Nonstationary Winds

Characterizing high winds is necessary for both understanding the meteorological processes and for mitigation, but the periods of highest winds are often of short duration, making statistical modeling difficult. Turbulence intensity and integral scale provide two standard descriptions of the magnitude and spatial scale of turbulence, but they are difficult to estimate from short wind measurements. In this paper, we explore the statistical issues associated with estimating these parameters in time-evolving windfields. Both standard spectral models and data collected at Texas Tech’s Wing Engineering Research Field Laboratory are used to develop statistical models of the uncertainty in estimates of both turbulence intensity and integral scale. New estimation techniques are developed based on these models. Finally, we provide bounds on how fast the nonstationary windfield can evolve while still allowing reasonable estimates for turbulence intensity and integral scale.