Wind tunnel measurements of crown streamlining and drag relationships for several hardwood species

Understanding tree susceptibility to wind damage is central to natural disturbance and succession studies. Susceptibility depends on the wind loads experienced by trees and their ability to resist these loads. In this study, we investigated the wind force or "drag" acting on the crowns of juvenile specimens of three hardwood species common to northwestern North America, black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa Torr. & A. Gray), red alder (Alnus rubra Bong.), and paper birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.). Ten freshly cut crowns of each species were exposed to wind speeds from 4 to 20 m/s in a wind tunnel. At 20 m/s, streamlining reduced the frontal area to 28% of its initial value for black cottonwood, 37% for red alder, and 20% for paper birch. Crown drag coefficients calculated using frontal area in still air varied with wind speed. At 20 m/s they ranged from 0.15 to 0.22 for these species. Drag was proportional to the product of mass and wind speed, and to the product of wind speed squared and wind-speed-spec...