U.S. Department of EnergyOffice of Scientific and Technical Information
Do wind turbines pose roll hazards to light aircraft?
Abstract
Abstract. Wind energy accounted for 5.6% of all electricity generationin the United States in 2016. Much of this development has occurred in rurallocations, where open spaces favorable for harnessing wind also serve generalaviation airports. As such, nearly 40% of all United States wind turbines existwithin 10km of a small airport. Wind turbines generate electricity byextracting momentum from the atmosphere, creating downwind wakescharacterized by wind-speed deficits and increased turbulence. Recently, theconcern that turbine wakes pose hazards for small aircraft has been used tolimit wind-farm development. Herein, we assess roll hazards to small aircraftusing large-eddy simulations (LES) of a utility-scale turbine wake. Wind-generatedlift forces and subsequent rolling moments are calculated for hypotheticalaircraft transecting the wake in various orientations. Stably and neutrallystratified cases are explored, with the stable case presenting a possibleworst-case scenario due to longer-persisting wakes permitted by lower ambientturbulence. In both cases, only 0.001% of rolling moments experienced byhypothetical aircraft during down-wake and cross-wake transects lead to anincreased risk of rolling.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[3];
[3]
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- 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), Wind and Water Technologies Office (EE-4W)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1513801
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/JA-5000-73919
Journal ID: ISSN 2366-7451
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC36-08GO28308
- Resource Type:
- Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Wind Energy Science (Online)
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 3; Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 2366-7451
- Publisher:
- European Wind Energy Association - Copernicus
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 17 WIND ENERGY; wakes; aircraft; large-eddy simulations
Citation Formats
Tomaszewski, Jessica M., Lundquist, Julie K., Churchfield, Matthew J., and Moriarty, Patrick J. Do wind turbines pose roll hazards to light aircraft?. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.5194/wes-3-833-2018.
Tomaszewski, Jessica M., Lundquist, Julie K., Churchfield, Matthew J., & Moriarty, Patrick J. Do wind turbines pose roll hazards to light aircraft?. United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-3-833-2018
Tomaszewski, Jessica M., Lundquist, Julie K., Churchfield, Matthew J., and Moriarty, Patrick J. 2018.
"Do wind turbines pose roll hazards to light aircraft?". United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-3-833-2018. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1513801.
@article{osti_1513801,
title = {Do wind turbines pose roll hazards to light aircraft?},
author = {Tomaszewski, Jessica M. and Lundquist, Julie K. and Churchfield, Matthew J. and Moriarty, Patrick J.},
abstractNote = {Abstract. Wind energy accounted for 5.6% of all electricity generationin the United States in 2016. Much of this development has occurred in rurallocations, where open spaces favorable for harnessing wind also serve generalaviation airports. As such, nearly 40% of all United States wind turbines existwithin 10km of a small airport. Wind turbines generate electricity byextracting momentum from the atmosphere, creating downwind wakescharacterized by wind-speed deficits and increased turbulence. Recently, theconcern that turbine wakes pose hazards for small aircraft has been used tolimit wind-farm development. Herein, we assess roll hazards to small aircraftusing large-eddy simulations (LES) of a utility-scale turbine wake. Wind-generatedlift forces and subsequent rolling moments are calculated for hypotheticalaircraft transecting the wake in various orientations. Stably and neutrallystratified cases are explored, with the stable case presenting a possibleworst-case scenario due to longer-persisting wakes permitted by lower ambientturbulence. In both cases, only 0.001% of rolling moments experienced byhypothetical aircraft during down-wake and cross-wake transects lead to anincreased risk of rolling.},
doi = {10.5194/wes-3-833-2018},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1513801},
journal = {Wind Energy Science (Online)},
issn = {2366-7451},
number = 2,
volume = 3,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Nov 02 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Fri Nov 02 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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Figure 1: Map of wind turbines (dots) and small airports ($$x$$) in the continental United States. Turbine dots are colored increasingly red as their proximity to a small airport increases. The number of turbines in each distance range is shown in parentheses.
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Figures / Tables found in this record:
Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.