skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: A new class of actuator surface models for wind turbines

Abstract

Abstract Actuator line model has been widely used in wind turbine simulations. However, the standard actuator line model does not include a model for the turbine nacelle which can significantly impact turbine wake characteristics. Another disadvantage of the standard actuator line model is that more geometrical features of turbine blades cannot be resolved on a finer mesh. To alleviate these disadvantages of the standard model, we develop a new class of actuator surface models for turbine blades and nacelle to take into account more geometrical details of turbine blades and include the effect of turbine nacelle. The actuator surface model for nacelle is evaluated by simulating the flow over periodically placed nacelles. Both the actuator surface simulation and the wall‐resolved large‐eddy simulation are conducted. The comparison shows that the actuator surface model is able to give acceptable results especially at far wake locations on a very coarse mesh. It is noted that although this model is used for the turbine nacelle in this work, it is also applicable to other bluff bodies. The capability of the actuator surface model in predicting turbine wakes is assessed by simulating the flow over the MEXICO (Model experiments in Controlled Conditions) turbine and themore » hydrokinetic turbine of Kang, Yang, and Sotiropoulos (Journal of Fluid Mechanics 744 (2014): 376‐403). Comparisons of the computed results with measurements show that the proposed actuator surface model is able to predict the tip vortices, turbulence statistics, and meandering of turbine wake with good accuracy.« less

Authors:
 [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Stony Brook University Stony Brook, New York 11794 USA
Publication Date:
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1417214
Grant/Contract Number:  
DE‐EE0002980; DE‐EE0005482; DE‐AC04‐94AL85000
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Publisher's Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Wind Energy
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Wind Energy Journal Volume: 21 Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 1095-4244
Publisher:
Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Language:
English

Citation Formats

Yang, Xiaolei, and Sotiropoulos, Fotis. A new class of actuator surface models for wind turbines. United Kingdom: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1002/we.2162.
Yang, Xiaolei, & Sotiropoulos, Fotis. A new class of actuator surface models for wind turbines. United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1002/we.2162
Yang, Xiaolei, and Sotiropoulos, Fotis. 2018. "A new class of actuator surface models for wind turbines". United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1002/we.2162.
@article{osti_1417214,
title = {A new class of actuator surface models for wind turbines},
author = {Yang, Xiaolei and Sotiropoulos, Fotis},
abstractNote = {Abstract Actuator line model has been widely used in wind turbine simulations. However, the standard actuator line model does not include a model for the turbine nacelle which can significantly impact turbine wake characteristics. Another disadvantage of the standard actuator line model is that more geometrical features of turbine blades cannot be resolved on a finer mesh. To alleviate these disadvantages of the standard model, we develop a new class of actuator surface models for turbine blades and nacelle to take into account more geometrical details of turbine blades and include the effect of turbine nacelle. The actuator surface model for nacelle is evaluated by simulating the flow over periodically placed nacelles. Both the actuator surface simulation and the wall‐resolved large‐eddy simulation are conducted. The comparison shows that the actuator surface model is able to give acceptable results especially at far wake locations on a very coarse mesh. It is noted that although this model is used for the turbine nacelle in this work, it is also applicable to other bluff bodies. The capability of the actuator surface model in predicting turbine wakes is assessed by simulating the flow over the MEXICO (Model experiments in Controlled Conditions) turbine and the hydrokinetic turbine of Kang, Yang, and Sotiropoulos (Journal of Fluid Mechanics 744 (2014): 376‐403). Comparisons of the computed results with measurements show that the proposed actuator surface model is able to predict the tip vortices, turbulence statistics, and meandering of turbine wake with good accuracy.},
doi = {10.1002/we.2162},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1417214}, journal = {Wind Energy},
issn = {1095-4244},
number = 5,
volume = 21,
place = {United Kingdom},
year = {Wed Jan 17 00:00:00 EST 2018},
month = {Wed Jan 17 00:00:00 EST 2018}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record at https://doi.org/10.1002/we.2162

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 53 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

On the statistics of wind turbine wake meandering: An experimental investigation
journal, July 2015


On the interaction between a turbulent open channel flow and an axial-flow turbine
journal, January 2013


Tip loss corrections for wind turbine computations
journal, January 2005


A hybrid Cartesian/immersed boundary method for simulating flows with 3D, geometrically complex, moving bodies
journal, August 2005


An immersed boundary method with direct forcing for the simulation of particulate flows
journal, November 2005


A smoothing technique for discrete delta functions with application to immersed boundary method in moving boundary simulations
journal, November 2009


A dynamic subgrid‐scale eddy viscosity model
journal, July 1991


Large-eddy simulation of offshore wind farm
journal, February 2014


Tip Loss Correction for Actuator/Navier–Stokes Computations
journal, April 2005


Effects of Thermal Stability and Incoming Boundary-Layer Flow Characteristics on Wind-Turbine Wakes: A Wind-Tunnel Study
journal, June 2010


Large eddy simulation study of fully developed wind-turbine array boundary layers
journal, January 2010


Validation of the actuator line method using near wake measurements of the MEXICO rotor: Validation of the ACL method
journal, January 2014


An embedded-boundary formulation for large-eddy simulation of turbulent flows interacting with moving boundaries
journal, June 2006


Aerodynamic analysis of HAWTs operating in unsteady conditions: Unsteady Aerodynamics of HAWTs
journal, January 2001


W ALL -L AYER M ODELS FOR L ARGE -E DDY S IMULATIONS
journal, January 2002


High-resolution numerical simulation of turbulence in natural waterways
journal, January 2011


Wake meandering statistics of a model wind turbine: Insights gained by large eddy simulations
journal, August 2016


Numerical Modeling of Wind Turbine Wakes
journal, May 2002


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


On the onset of wake meandering for an axial flow turbine in a turbulent open channel flow
journal, March 2014


The Actuator Surface Model: A New Navier–Stokes Based Model for Rotor Computations
journal, January 2009


Computational study and modeling of turbine spacing effects in infinite aligned wind farms
journal, November 2012


Immersed boundary methods for simulating fluid–structure interaction
journal, February 2014