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Effect of wind turbine nacelle on turbine wake dynamics in large wind farms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2019

Daniel Foti ,
Xiaolei Yang ,
Lian Shen Open the ORCID record for Lian Shen [Opens in a new window]  and
Fotis Sotiropoulos Open the ORCID record for Fotis Sotiropoulos [Opens in a new window]
Daniel Foti
Affiliation:
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Xiaolei Yang
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering and Applied Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
Lian Shen
Affiliation:
St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
Fotis Sotiropoulos*
Affiliation:
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering and Applied Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: fotis.sotiropoulos@stonybrook.edu
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Abstract

Wake meandering, a phenomenon of large-scale lateral oscillation of the wake, has significant effects on the velocity deficit and turbulence intensities in wind turbine wakes. Previous studies of a single turbine (Kang et al., J. Fluid. Mech., vol. 774, 2014, pp. 374–403; Foti et al., Phys. Rev. Fluids, vol. 1 (4), 2016, 044407) have shown that the turbine nacelle induces large-scale coherent structures in the near field that can have a significant effect on wake meandering. However, whether nacelle-induced coherent structures at the turbine scale impact the emergent turbine wake dynamics at the wind farm scale is still an open question of both fundamental and practical significance. We take on this question by carrying out large-eddy simulation of atmospheric turbulent flow over the Horns Rev wind farm using actuator surface parameterisations of the turbines without and with the turbine nacelle taken into account. While the computed mean turbine power output and the mean velocity field away from the nacelle wake are similar for both cases, considerable differences are found in the turbine power fluctuations and turbulence intensities. Furthermore, wake meandering amplitude and area defined by wake meanders, which indicates the turbine wake unsteadiness, are larger for the simulations with the turbine nacelle. The wake influenced area computed from the velocity deficit profiles, which describes the spanwise extent of the turbine wakes, and the spanwise growth rate, on the other hand, are smaller for some rows in the simulation with the nacelle model. Our work shows that incorporating the nacelle model in wind farm scale simulations is critical for accurate predictions of quantities that affect the wind farm levelised cost of energy, such as the dynamics of wake meandering and the dynamic loads on downwind turbines.

JFM classification

Wakes/Jets: Wakes
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 869 , 25 June 2019 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
© 2019 Cambridge University Press 

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