A new class of actuator surface models incorporating wind turbine blade and nacelle geometry effects

ORAL

Abstract

It was shown by Kang, Yang and Sotiropoulos (Journal of Fluid Mechanics 744 (2014): 376-403.) that the nacelle has significant effects on the turbine wake even in the far wake region, which the standard actuator line model is not able to predict. We develop a new class of actuator surface models for the blades and nacelle, which is able to resolve the effects of both tip vortices and nacelle vortex. The new nacelle model, which is based on distributing forces from the actual nacelle geometry as in the diffused interface immersed boundary methods, is first tested by carrying out LES of the flow past a sphere and demonstrating good agreement with available in the literature DNS results. The proposed model is subsequently validated by simulating the flow past the hydrokinetic turbine used in the simulations of Kang et al. and good agreement with the measurements is demonstrated. Finally, the proposed model is applied to utility scale wind turbines to elucidate the role of nacelle vortex dynamics on turbine wake meandering.

*This work was supported by Department of Energy DOE (DE-EE0002980, DE-EE0005482 and DE-AC04-94AL85000), and Sandia National Laboratories. Computational resources were provided by SNL and MSI.

–

Authors

  • Xiaolei Yang

    • Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering, University of Minnesota
    • St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota
    • University of Minnesota

  • Fotis Sotiropoulos

    • St. Anthony Falls Lab., University of Minnesota
    • St. Anthony Falls Lab. University of Minnesota
    • Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering, University of Minnesota
    • Univ of Minn - Minneapolis
    • University of Minnesota
    • St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota
    • Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota