## 1 Introduction  
With the rapid change in climatic conditions, the risk of accidents due to high winds is increasing. This is particularly important in the case of cranes and different types of mobile elevating work platforms. The wind is the second most common cause of tower crane accidents [1]. Extremely tall tower cranes are particularly exposed to such dangers [2]. The entire structure, as well as the horizontal beam of the crane jib, may be damaged [3]. However, relatively lower tower cranes are also exposed to the risk of tip-over due to local strong gusts of wind. Cranes with heights of 35 to 50 m are the most commonly used cranes in the building industry. These are free-standing cranes that can be used to build a 10-story residential building. Higher structures are secured against overturning by anchoring to the building. Therefore, the authors limited themselves to free-standing crane structures. Such a structure was the scene of an accident that took place in Cracow (Poland) on 17 February 2022. A local strong whirlwind, probably created due to the interference effect caused by the surrounding buildings, was so strong that it caused the overturning of a tower crane [4]. This whirlwind is clearly visible in the video, which is available on the referenced website. Two people died because of this accident. It is worth noting that this kind of wind phenomenon is rather rare in Cracow and its surroundings areas. Moreover, it seems that all safety principles had been fully satisfied prior to the accident. Therefore, this accident is one of the main motivations for the work presented here. Generally, according to different standards, namely the European standard, Eurocode ISO 4302:2016 [5]; British standard, BS 2573-1 [6]; American Society of Civil Engineersstandard, ASCE 7-16 [7]; Japanese standard, JIS B 8830-2001 [8]; and Chinese standard, GB/T 3811-2008 [9], the load induced by wind is treated as a static load. The influence of the surroundings and adjacent structures, mainly buildings (so-called interference effect), is neglected. However, from a practical point of view, such a simple approach could be inadequate in the case of real airflow phenomena, especially in the case of large-scale structures like tower cranes, gantry cranes, or different types of mobile elevating work platforms. Thus, there is significant value in works in which wind measurements are performed on real-scale structures [10; 11; 12]. Based on these results, the appropriate wind conditions can be imitated in aerodynamic tunnels, where scaled models of the real large-scale structures can be tested in order to determine the wind load (force and movement coefficients) [13; 14; 15; 16]. On the other hand, the rapid development of computer hardware, together with specialized software based on the finite element method or finite volume method, allows for numerical simulations of the airflow and its interactions with different types of cranes or mobile elevating work platforms to be carried out [17; 18; 19]. Additionally, by having the distribution of the static pressure (caused by wind) on the surface of the studied structure available, it is possible to carry out further mechanical analyses based on the fluid-solid interaction in order to determine, for example, the stress distribution in the most at-risk parts of the structure [20]. Moreover, an analysis of the dynamic response of the investigated structure is also possible [21]. Nowadays, the standard approach in the case of the analysis of the impact of the wind on crane-like structures consists of two steps. Generally, in the first step, a scaled model of the studied structure is prepared, and next, the appropriate experimental analysis is performed in an aerodynamic tunnel. In the second step, numerical simulations are carried out, and the results are compared [22].