Trees are vulnerable to uprooting or breakage during strong winds, compromising their ecological functions and potentially triggering secondary hazards. In this paper, a one-way fluid–structure interaction approach, combining Computational Fluid Dynamics and Finite Element Analysis, is adopted to investigate the aerodynamic characteristics and wind-induced dynamic response of tree using both time-domain and frequency-domain approaches. The tree crown is simplified as an isotropic porous medium using the Darcy–Forchheimer canopy model, and the turbulent flow field is resolved using Large Eddy Simulation. Results are validated in terms of both aerodynamic and structural responses. Results show that the canopy with a higher inertial resistance coefficient reduces the mean wind speed and Reynolds stress more significantly immediately downstream of the trunk, owing to momentum absorption by canopy drag. The vortex shedding around the cylindrical trunk and branches is suppressed by the canopy to some degree. In particular, the contribution of the canopy dominates the along-wind displacement of the tree and shifts the location of maximum stress concentration from the trunk base to the branch junctions. This study provides an effective numerical method for predicting wind–tree interaction and quantifies the crucial role played by the canopy in establishing the failure mechanism of trees under wind loading.
Chen et al. (Sun,) studied this question.