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

Title: Unraveling the Mysteries of Turbulence Transport in a Wind Farm

Journal Article · · Energies
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/en8076468· OSTI ID:1348917
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [1]
  1. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States). Dept. of Aerospace Engineering
  2. Intelligent Light, Rutherford, NJ (United States). Applied Research Group
+ Show Author Affiliations

A true physical understanding of the mysteries involved in the recovery process of the wake momentum deficit, downstream of utility-scale wind turbines in the atmosphere, has not been obtained to date. Field data are not acquired at sufficient spatial and temporal resolutions to dissect some of the mysteries of wake turbulence. It is here that the actuator line method has evolved to become the technology standard in the wind energy community. This work presents the actuator line method embedded into an Open source Field Operation and Manipulation (OpenFOAM) large-eddy simulation solver and applies it to two small wind farms, the first one consisting of an array of two National Renewable Energy Laboratory 5 Megawatt (NREL 5-MW) turbines separated by seven rotor diameters in neutral and unstable atmospheric boundary-layer flow and the second one consisting of five NREL 5-MW wind turbines in unstable atmospheric conditions arranged in two staggered arrays of two and three turbines, respectively. Detailed statistics involving power spectral density (PSD) of turbine power along with standard deviations reveal the effects of atmospheric turbulence and its space and time scales. In conclusion, high-resolution surface data extracts provide new insight into the complex recovery process of the wake momentum deficit governed by turbulence transport phenomena.

Research Organization:
Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Wind and Water Technologies Office (EE-4W)
Grant/Contract Number:
EE0005481
OSTI ID:
1348917
Journal Information:
Energies, Vol. 8, Issue 7; ISSN 1996-1073
Publisher:
MDPI AGCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 10 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (18)

A Numerical Study of Atmospheric and Wake Turbulence Impacts on Wind Turbine Fatigue Loadings journal February 2013
Turbulent Flow Properties Around a Staggered Wind Farm journal August 2011
Numerical simulations of wake characteristics of a wind turbine in uniform inflow journal January 2010
Implications of Stably Stratified Atmospheric Boundary Layer Turbulence on the Near-Wake Structure of Wind Turbines journal September 2014
Solution of the implicitly discretised fluid flow equations by operator-splitting journal January 1986
Turbulent Flow Inside and Above a Wind Farm: A Wind-Tunnel Study journal November 2011
Reynolds number dependence of turbulence statistics in the wake of wind turbines: Reynolds dependence of wind turbine wakes journal September 2011
Numerical study of the turbulent flow past an airfoil with trailing edge separation journal November 1983
A numerical study of the effects of atmospheric and wake turbulence on wind turbine dynamics journal January 2012
Atmospheric Turbulence Effects on Wind-Turbine Wakes: An LES Study journal December 2012
Simulation of wind turbine wakes using the actuator line technique
  • Sørensen, Jens N.; Mikkelsen, Robert F.; Henningson, Dan S.
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 373, Issue 2035 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0071
journal February 2015
Guidelines for Volume Force Distributions Within Actuator Line Modeling of Wind Turbines on Large-Eddy Simulation-Type Grids journal January 2014
Numerical Modeling of Wind Turbine Wakes journal May 2002
A Numerical Study of the Effects of Wind Direction on Turbine Wakes and Power Losses in a Large Wind Farm journal October 2013
Altering Kinetic Energy Entrainment in Large Eddy Simulations of Large Wind Farms Using Unconventional Wind Turbine Actuator Forcing journal January 2015
On Space-Time Resolution of Inflow Representations for Wind Turbine Loads Analysis journal June 2012
The effects of mean atmospheric forcings of the stable atmospheric boundary layer on wind turbine wake journal January 2015
General Circulation Experiments with the Primitive Equations: i. the Basic Experiment* journal March 1963

Cited By (3)

Do wind turbines pose roll hazards to light aircraft? journal January 2018
The Influence of Eroded Blades on Wind Turbine Performance Using Numerical Simulations journal September 2017
Spatiotemporal Correlations in the Power Output of Wind Farms: On the Impact of Atmospheric Stability journal April 2019

Similar Records

Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
wake turbulence
wake recovery
turbulence transport
actuator line method
large-eddy simulation