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To achieve decarbonization targets, wind turbines are growing in hub height and rotor diameter, and they are being deployed in new locations with diverse atmospheric conditions not previously seen, such as offshore. Physics-based analytical wake models commonly used for design and control of wind farms simplify atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) and wake physics to achieve computational efficiency. This is accomplished primarily through a simplified model form that neglects certain flow processes, such as atmospheric stability, and through the parametrization of ABL and wake turbulence through a wake spreading rate. In this study, we systematically analyze the physical mechanisms that govern momentum and turbulence within a wind turbine wake in the stratified ABL. We use large-eddy simulation and analysis of the streamwise momentum deficit and wake-added turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) budgets to study wind turbine wakes under neutral and stable conditions. To parse the turbulence in the wake from the turbulent, incident ABL flow, we decompose the flow into the base ABL flow and the deficit flow produced by the presence of a turbine. We then analyze the decomposed flow field budgets to study the effects of changing stability on the streamwise momentum deficit and wake-added TKE. The results demonstrate that stability changes the relative balance of turbulence and advection for both the streamwise momentum deficit and wake-added TKE primarily through the nonlinear interactions of the base flow with the deficit flow. The stable cases are most affected by increased shear and veer in the base flow and the neutral case is most affected by the increased ambient turbulence intensity. These differences in the base flow that arise from stratification are relatively more important than the buoyancy forcing terms in the wake-added TKE budget. The wake-added TKE depends on the ABL stability. An existing wake-added TKE model that neglects the effects of ABL stability yields error compared to large-eddy simulation, with errors that are higher in stable conditions than neutral. These results motivate future research to develop fast-running models of wake-added TKE that account for stability effects. Published by the American Physical Society2024
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This content will become publicly available on May 1, 2026
Wake turbulence modeling in stratified atmospheric flows using a novel k−ℓ model
As turbines continue to grow in hub height and rotor diameter and wind farms grow larger, consideration of stratified atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) processes in wind power models becomes increasingly important. Atmospheric stratification can considerably alter the boundary layer structure and flow characteristics through buoyant forcing. Variations in buoyancy, and corresponding ABL stability, in both space and time impact ABL wind speed shear, wind direction shear, boundary layer height, turbulence kinetic energy, and turbulence intensity. In addition, the presence of stratification will result in a direct buoyant forcing within the wake region. These ABL mechanisms affect turbine power production, the momentum and kinetic energy deficit wakes generated by turbines, and the turbulent mixing and kinetic energy entrainment in wind farms. Presently, state-of-practice engineering models of mean wake momentum utilize highly empirical turbulence models that do not explicitly account for ABL stability. Models also often neglect the interaction between the wake momentum deficit and the turbulence kinetic energy added by the wake, which depends on stratification. In this work, we develop a turbulence model that models the wake-added turbulence kinetic energy, and we couple it with a wake model based on the parabolized Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations. Comparing the model predictions to large eddy simulations across stabilities (Obukhov lengths) and surface roughness lengths, we find lower prediction error in both power production and the wake velocity field across the ABL conditions and error metrics investigated.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2226053
- PAR ID:
- 10610885
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Institute of Physics
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 1941-7012
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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