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Title: Analysis of the sweeped actuator line method

Abstract

The actuator line method made it possible to describe the near wake of a wind turbine more accurately than with the actuator disk method. Whereas the actuator line generates the helicoidal vortex system shed from the tip blades, the actuator disk method sheds a vortex sheet from the edge of the rotor plane. But with the actuator line come also temporal and spatial constraints, such as the need for a much smaller time step than with actuator disk. While the latter one only has to obey the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy condition, the former one is also restricted by the grid resolution and the rotor tip-speed. Additionally the spatial resolution has to be finer for the actuator line than with the actuator disk, for well resolving the tip vortices. Therefore this work is dedicated to examining a method in between of actuator line and actuator disk, which is able to model the transient behavior, such as the rotating blades, but which also relaxes the temporal constraint. Therefore a larger time-step is used and the blade forces are swept over a certain area. As a result, the main focus of this article is on the aspect of the blade tip vortex generation in comparisonmore » with the standard actuator line and actuator disk.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2]
  1. Ecole de Technologie Superieure, Montreal, QC (Canada)
  2. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
OSTI Identifier:
1352992
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5000-68400
Journal ID: ISSN 2267-1242
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC36-08GO28308
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
E3S Web of Conferences
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 2267-1242
Publisher:
EDP Sciences
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
17 WIND ENERGY; actuator line method; wind turbines; blade tip vortex generation

Citation Formats

Nathan, Jörn, Masson, Christian, Dufresne, Louis, and Churchfield, Matthew J. Analysis of the sweeped actuator line method. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1051/e3sconf/20150501001.
Nathan, Jörn, Masson, Christian, Dufresne, Louis, & Churchfield, Matthew J. Analysis of the sweeped actuator line method. United States. https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20150501001
Nathan, Jörn, Masson, Christian, Dufresne, Louis, and Churchfield, Matthew J. 2015. "Analysis of the sweeped actuator line method". United States. https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20150501001. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1352992.
@article{osti_1352992,
title = {Analysis of the sweeped actuator line method},
author = {Nathan, Jörn and Masson, Christian and Dufresne, Louis and Churchfield, Matthew J.},
abstractNote = {The actuator line method made it possible to describe the near wake of a wind turbine more accurately than with the actuator disk method. Whereas the actuator line generates the helicoidal vortex system shed from the tip blades, the actuator disk method sheds a vortex sheet from the edge of the rotor plane. But with the actuator line come also temporal and spatial constraints, such as the need for a much smaller time step than with actuator disk. While the latter one only has to obey the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy condition, the former one is also restricted by the grid resolution and the rotor tip-speed. Additionally the spatial resolution has to be finer for the actuator line than with the actuator disk, for well resolving the tip vortices. Therefore this work is dedicated to examining a method in between of actuator line and actuator disk, which is able to model the transient behavior, such as the rotating blades, but which also relaxes the temporal constraint. Therefore a larger time-step is used and the blade forces are swept over a certain area. As a result, the main focus of this article is on the aspect of the blade tip vortex generation in comparison with the standard actuator line and actuator disk.},
doi = {10.1051/e3sconf/20150501001},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1352992}, journal = {E3S Web of Conferences},
issn = {2267-1242},
number = ,
volume = 5,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Oct 16 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Fri Oct 16 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}

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Cited by: 2 works
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Works referenced in this record:

Numerical Modeling of Wind Turbine Wakes
journal, May 2002


Large-Eddy Simulation of Wind-Turbine Wakes: Evaluation of Turbine Parametrisations
journal, December 2010


Large eddy simulations of the flow past wind turbines: actuator line and disk modeling: LES of the flow past wind turbines: actuator line and disk modeling
journal, April 2014


High Resolution Schemes for Hyperbolic Conservation Laws
journal, August 1997


Stability analysis of the tip vortices of a wind turbine
journal, March 2010


A Large-Eddy Simulations of Wind-Plant Aerodynamics
conference, November 2012

  • Churchfield, Matthew; Lee, Sang; Moriarty, Patrick
  • 50th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting including the New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition
  • https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2012-537

Works referencing / citing this record:

Multiscale aeroelastic simulations of large wind farms in the atmospheric boundary layer
journal, September 2016