Rail Baltica Central Station Project: design passed tests with flying colours

It is the largest infrastructure project in the Baltic region for 100 years. And when it comes to the design of the future Riga railway station, our engineers of the BERERIX joint venture definitely know which way the wind blows at the Rail Baltica Central Station project in Latvia.

During the summer of 2020, the design has passed the wind tunnel and wind comfort tests. The main purpose of the tests was to assess both the resistance of the structures and the comfort of the commuters waiting on the train platforms. All weather conditions typical of the Latvian capital were simulated on the highly-complex structure.

Wind tunnel tests are generally applied to large, complex or multi-storey buildings, where wind pressure is an important part of the project in structural load planning and selection of suitable building materials. To test the resistance of the main building and canopies along the platforms, the engineers created a model of a station equipped with sensors that measured the effects of wind.

Wind comfort tests were equally executed. Through them, the team investigated how comfortable people would feel on a railway platform in windy weather, in order to design comfy and safe outdoor spaces. Due to the specific shape of the future station building, i.e. large arches located in its bottom part, natural wind can flow at the platform level, hence the importance to add comfort tests to the list!