Abstract
Some US offshore sites can experience intense precipitation, which warrants investigating its impact on wind turbine performance. This work is the preliminary part of a study on the influence of inertial particles on the wake dynamics of a stationary porous disk. The first part of the work focuses on the experimental design and construction of a two-phase wind tunnel, emphasizing the achievement of quasi-homogeneous isotropic turbulence (HIT) in the open tunnel configuration with inflow wind conditions without the inertial particles, also referred to as 'dry conditions.' Constant Temperature Anemometry (CTA) hotwire measurements are performed to characterize turbulence in the background flow in the tunnel, including investigating the effects of adding honeycombs, screens, and spray grids on the flow quality. In addition, 2D Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) studies are performed to complement this experimental work with an emphasis on enhancing the flow quality in the tunnel. The second part of the work involves studying the turbulence in the wake of a stationary porous disk under dry conditions. Turbulence statistics are calculated for the near and far wake of the porous disk and compared against the background flow in the open tunnel configuration.
**This work is mainly supported by start-up funds from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, University of Maine. The authors also acknowledge support from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maine and the Governor’s Energy Office (GEO), State of Maine.*This work is mainly supported by start-up funds from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, University of Maine. The authors also acknowledge support from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maine, the Governor's Energy Office (GEO), State of Maine, and the NUWind project funded by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir), project number UTF-2021/10157.
