Characteristics and modelling of wake for aligned multiple turbines based on numerical simulation

Runze Zhang (1, 2, 3, 4) , Zhiqiang Xin (5) , Guoqing Huang (2) , Bowen Yan (2) , Xuhong Zhou (2) , Xiaowei Deng (6)

1 Energy Research Institute
2 School of Civil Engineering
3 Yangjiang Offshore Wind Energy Laboratory
4 LMEE - Laboratoire de Mécanique et d'Energétique d'Evry
5 The College of Mechanics and Materials
6 Department of Civil Engineering

Wind energy has become one of the most commercially prospective renewable energies. However, the wake effect of wind turbine can reduce the power generation efficiency and increase the fatigue loading of downstream turbines. Hence, the wake effect study has attracted increasing interests. Compared with the extensive study on the single turbine wake, that on the superposition effect of multiple turbine (multi-turbine) wakes is limited. In this study, the characteristics of the wake velocity and turbulence intensity are studied and the exponential superposition model is proposed for the aligned multi-turbine wakes. Firstly, Simulator for Offshore Wind Farm Applications (SOWFA), a high-fidelity simulator for the interaction between wind turbine dynamics and the flow in a wind farm, is used to analyze the distribution of aligned multi-turbine wakes. It is observed that wakes reach the steady state from second turbine in the aligned turbines. Then influences of different factors on the accuracy of existing superposition models are studied. It is found spacing has significant effect on the performance of superposition models. Furthermore, the exponential superposition model with higher applicability is proposed for the wake velocity and turbulence intensity. Finally, this model is validated by the benchmark data of real wind farms.

Keywords: Actuator line method; Large eddy simulation; Multiple wind turbines; Numerical simulation; Wake; Wake superposition model

Domains: Mechanics [physics.med-ph]

Runze Zhang, Zhiqiang Xin, Guoqing Huang, Bowen Yan, Xuhong Zhou, et al.. Characteristics and modelling of wake for aligned multiple turbines based on numerical simulation. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 2022, 228, pp.105097. ⟨10.1016/j.jweia.2022.105097⟩. ⟨hal-03751712⟩