Study on Natural Ventilation in Gridiron of High-pile Wharf to Enhance The Durability Performance

The salt which origins from offshore zone is easy to gather in the semi-closed space formed by beams and slabs of pile-supported wharf called gridiron space, and that could induce the premature failure of durability of the wharf's substructure. Previous work commonly focused on material-level measures which will lead to increased costs such as anti-corrosion concrete and anti-corrosion coatings to eliminate the adverse effects of that gathering of salt fog. In fact, the salt fog could be extracted from the gridiron by natural ventilation in some cases, so it is necessary to examine the flow characteristics in the gridiron space. In this work, the numerical simulation has been conducted with natural ventilation and auxiliary ventilation group. Critical value of the blocking ratio (defined as height ratio of edge stringer to air inlet) that makes the airflow inside the gridiron reach the strongest turbulence is found in natural ventilation group. In addition, the effect of different auxiliary ventilation schemes is compared in auxiliary ventilation group. Some recommendations for designing were proposed to enhancing pile-supported wharf's durability.