We present the analysis of the trajectories followed by the wind, in the immediate vicinity, behind an offshore wind turbine and their dependence on its yaw misalignment. We apply wake tracking on wind fields measured with a lidar (light detection and ranging) system located at the nacelle of the wind turbine and pointing downstream. The analysis reveals discrepancies of the estimated mean wake paths against theoretical and wind tunnel experiments using different wake-tracking techniques.

Feasibility of a freely available CFD tool, OpenFOAM, in calculating flows of general relevance to the wind industry is investigated by comparing several aspects of its performance to a well-established in-house EllipSys3D solver. The comparison is focused on CFD solver demands regarding grid generation process and computational time. The quality and accuracy of the achieved results are investigated by conducting the computations using identical/similar solver parameters and numerical setups..

The paper presents a new method to conduct the holistic optimization of a wind turbine. The proposed approach allows one to define the rotor radius and tower height, while simultaneously performing the detailed sizing of rotor and tower. For the rotor, the procedures perform simultaneously the design both from the aerodynamic and structural points of view. The overall optimization seeks a minimum for the cost of energy, while accounting for a wide range of user-defined design constraints.