Kahuku kite wind study. III. Turbulence analysis

Technical Report · Mon Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1982

OSTI ID:6549509

Daniels, P A

One second recordings of wind speeds and directions from two kites flying at 30 and 90 meters and from a conventional vane/anemometer at 9 m were collected during over one hundred one-hour runs at eight sites in the Kahuku area on Oahu, Hawaii. A large wind turbine farm may be built in this area. Kite wind speeds were measured by a strain gauge and direction by two orthogonal potentiometers. The sites were located along two transects, one parallel to the prevailing trade winds from the ocean to the foothills area and the other in the foothill area perpendicular to the trades. The data were analyzed using three methods specifically developed for large wind turbine applications: the Ramsdell discrete gust model, the Huang-Fichtl discrete gust rise model and the NASA MOD-2 turbulence model. Additionally, autocorrelations were calculated. All four statistics indicated that the kites sampled turbulence significantly differently from the conventional anemometer, sensing much more small scale turbulence in the range that affects large wind turbines. It is hypothesized that the kites are cutting in and out of elongated turbulence features in much the same way as a moving turbine blade would. If this is the case, kite measurements would be more suitable for measuring the turbulence that affects wind turbines than anemometers.

• Research Organization: Hawaii Univ., Honolulu (USA). Dept. of Meteorology
• DOE Contract Number: FG03-77ET20184
• OSTI ID: 6549509
• Report Number(s): UHMET-82-03; ON: DE83006401
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
170604* -- Wind Energy Engineering-- Site Characteristics
ANEMOMETERS
CORRELATIONS
DATA
DATA ANALYSIS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FEDERAL REGION IX
HAWAII
INFORMATION
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATHEMATICS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
NORTH AMERICA
NUMERICAL DATA
ORIENTATION
SPECTRA
STATISTICS
THEORETICAL DATA
TURBULENCE
USA
VELOCITY
WIND