Commercial wind engineering into the 21st century

The Halcrow Wind Engineering Group (WEG), is demonstrating the value of their "Numerical Wind Tunnel" with significant contributions to a number of recent projects. The numerical capabilities of the Group are founded on two leading edge computer packages, DIVEX and BRIDGES. To date WEG have undertaken commissions on a range of structural forms and in various fields including long span slender bridges, bluff bridges, aerofoil design and even the design of oil risers. The aim of the group is to provide a fast and reliable computational alternative to more costly physical models. The advantage of this approach, is it allows the designer to optimise the design and identify potential problems early in the project, at relatively low cost compared to time consuming and expensive wind tunnel testing.