Articles | Volume 7, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1551-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1551-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
20 Jul 2022
Research article |
| 20 Jul 2022
| 20 Jul 2022
Computational fluid dynamics studies on wind turbine interactions with the turbulent local flow field influenced by complex topography and thermal stratification
Patrick Letzgus
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Institute of Aerodynamics and Gas Dynamics, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 21, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Giorgia Guma
Institute of Aerodynamics and Gas Dynamics, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 21, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Thorsten Lutz
Institute of Aerodynamics and Gas Dynamics, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 21, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
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Wind turbine aeroelasticity is becoming more and more important because turbine sizes are increasingly leading to more slender blades. On the other hand, complex terrains are of interest because they are far away from urban areas. These regions are characterized by low velocities and high turbulence and are mostly influenced by the presence of forest, and that is why it is necessary to develop high-fidelity tools to correctly simulate the wind turbine's response.
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This study evaluates different approaches to simulate the near-wake flow of a wind turbine. The test case is in off-design conditions of the wind turbine, where the flow is separated from the blades and therefore very difficult to predict. The evaluation of simulation techniques is key to understand their limitations and to deepen the understanding of the near-wake physics. This knowledge can help to derive new wind farm design methods for yield-optimized farm layouts.
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Wind Energ. Sci., 8, 1369–1385, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-8-1369-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-8-1369-2023, 2023
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Vortex generators are evaluated on a 2 MW wind turbine rotor blade by computational fluid dynamic methods. Those devices delay flow separation on the airfoils and thus increase their efficiency. On the wind turbine blade, rotational phenomena (e.g. rotational augmentation) appear and interact with the vortices from the vortex generators. The understanding of those interactions is crucial in order to optimise the placement of the vortex generators and evaluate their real efficiency on the blade.
Roger Bergua, Amy Robertson, Jason Jonkman, Emmanuel Branlard, Alessandro Fontanella, Marco Belloli, Paolo Schito, Alberto Zasso, Giacomo Persico, Andrea Sanvito, Ervin Amet, Cédric Brun, Guillén Campaña-Alonso, Raquel Martín-San-Román, Ruolin Cai, Jifeng Cai, Quan Qian, Wen Maoshi, Alec Beardsell, Georg Pirrung, Néstor Ramos-García, Wei Shi, Jie Fu, Rémi Corniglion, Anaïs Lovera, Josean Galván, Tor Anders Nygaard, Carlos Renan dos Santos, Philippe Gilbert, Pierre-Antoine Joulin, Frédéric Blondel, Eelco Frickel, Peng Chen, Zhiqiang Hu, Ronan Boisard, Kutay Yilmazlar, Alessandro Croce, Violette Harnois, Lijun Zhang, Ye Li, Ander Aristondo, Iñigo Mendikoa Alonso, Simone Mancini, Koen Boorsma, Feike Savenije, David Marten, Rodrigo Soto-Valle, Christian W. Schulz, Stefan Netzband, Alessandro Bianchini, Francesco Papi, Stefano Cioni, Pau Trubat, Daniel Alarcon, Climent Molins, Marion Cormier, Konstantin Brüker, Thorsten Lutz, Qing Xiao, Zhongsheng Deng, Florence Haudin, and Akhilesh Goveas
Wind Energ. Sci., 8, 465–485, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-8-465-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-8-465-2023, 2023
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This work examines if the motion experienced by an offshore floating wind turbine can significantly affect the rotor performance. It was observed that the system motion results in variations in the load, but these variations are not critical, and the current simulation tools capture the physics properly. Interestingly, variations in the rotor speed or the blade pitch angle can have a larger impact than the system motion itself.
Pradip Zamre and Thorsten Lutz
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 1661–1677, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1661-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1661-2022, 2022
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To get more insight into the influence of the urban-terrain flow on the performance of the rooftop-mounted two-bladed Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine, scale resolving simulations are performed for a generic wind turbine in realistic terrain under turbulent conditions. It is found that the turbulence and skewed nature of the flow near rooftop locations have a positive impact on the performance of the wind turbine.
Giorgia Guma, Philipp Bucher, Patrick Letzgus, Thorsten Lutz, and Roland Wüchner
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 1421–1439, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1421-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1421-2022, 2022
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Wind turbine aeroelasticity is becoming more and more important because turbine sizes are increasingly leading to more slender blades. On the other hand, complex terrains are of interest because they are far away from urban areas. These regions are characterized by low velocities and high turbulence and are mostly influenced by the presence of forest, and that is why it is necessary to develop high-fidelity tools to correctly simulate the wind turbine's response.
Florian Wenz, Judith Langner, Thorsten Lutz, and Ewald Krämer
Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 1321–1340, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1321-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-1321-2022, 2022
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To get a better understanding of the influence of the terrain flow on the unsteady pressure distributions on the wind turbine surface, a fully resolved turbine was simulated in the complex terrain of Perdigão, Portugal. It was found that the pressure fluctuations at the tower caused by vortex shedding are significantly hampered by the terrain flow, while the pressure fluctuations caused by the blade–tower interaction are hardly changed.
Giorgia Guma, Galih Bangga, Thorsten Lutz, and Ewald Krämer
Wind Energ. Sci., 6, 93–110, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-6-93-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-6-93-2021, 2021
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With the increase in installed wind capacity, the rotor diameter of wind turbines is becoming larger and larger, and therefore it is necessary to take aeroelasticity into consideration. At the same time, wind turbines are in reality subjected to atmospheric inflow leading to high wind instabilities and fluctuations. Within this work, a high-fidelity chain is used to analyze the effects of both by the use of models of the same turbine with increasing complexity and technical details.
Simone Mancini, Koen Boorsma, Marco Caboni, Marion Cormier, Thorsten Lutz, Paolo Schito, and Alberto Zasso
Wind Energ. Sci., 5, 1713–1730, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-5-1713-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-5-1713-2020, 2020
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This work characterizes the unsteady aerodynamic response of a scaled version of a 10 MW floating wind turbine subjected to an imposed platform motion. The focus has been put on the simple yet significant motion along the wind's direction (surge). For this purpose, different state-of-the-art aerodynamic codes have been used, validating the outcomes with detailed wind tunnel experiments. This paper sheds light on floating-turbine unsteady aerodynamics for a more conscious controller design.
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Short summary
The research article presents the results of a study of highly resolved numerical simulations of a wind energy test site in complex terrain that is currently under construction in the Swabian Alps in southern Germany. The numerical results emphasised the importance of considering orography, vegetation, and thermal stratification in numerical simulations to resolve the wind field decently. In this way, the effects on loads, power, and wake of the wind turbine can also be predicted well.
The research article presents the results of a study of highly resolved numerical simulations of...
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