the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 09 Sep 2025
Comparison of different simulation methods regarding loads, considering the Center of Wind Pressure
Abstract. This study presents a comprehensive comparison of different wind turbine simulation methods, with a focus on aerodynamic load prediction using the concept of the Center of Wind Pressure (CoWP) [C. Schubert et al., Wind Energ. Sci. Discuss., 2025]. Simulations under laminar, shear, and turbulent inflow conditions are carried out for this comparison. A new quantity, namely the Load center, is introduced to correlate the flow-related CoWP and the loads of the turbine. A novel calibration factor is introduced to establish a direct relationship between flow structures and aerodynamic loads. A good correlation between the inflow wind field and loads from blade element momentum simulations (BEM) is found. High-resolution Large eddy simulations (LES) show improved correlation with CoWP-based load estimates, attributable to the more-resolved flow modelling capabilities.
Competing interests: At least one of the (co-)authors is a member of the editorial board of Wind Energy Science.
Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.- Preprint
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Status: open (until 30 Nov 2025)
- RC1: 'Comment on wes-2025-158', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Nov 2025 reply
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RC2: 'Comment on wes-2025-158', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Nov 2025
reply
The manuscript extends the new notion of “centre of wind pressure” (CoWP) which is a simple, but effective notion introduced previously by the same research group. In prior publications CoWP has only been tested against simple BEM simulations of wind turbines, whereas in the following work it is assessed against simulations of various fidelities. This includes BEM, but also extends to LES in which the turbine is modelled through an actuator line method as well as a blade resolving DES. The paper reveals that indeed CoWP is suited to higher-fidelity simulations and a calibration factor is determined to link the flow structures within a turbulent inflow to the aerodynamic loads on the turbine, namely the moment applied to the shaft. Overall this manuscript is of a good scientific quality and ought to be published in Wind Energy Science where it will garner significant attention. I would suggest only minor modifications to the originally-submitted manuscript before publication.
1. A lengthier discussion of the generation of the synthetic turbulence should be included. At some points in the manuscript it is a little opaque, for example on line 55 the spectrum is not defined, nor anywhere is the model spectrum that is used.
2. A minor point but a 5MW, 126 diameter turbine does not really reflect the state-of-the-art in 2025.
3. In general the captions to the figures could be more informative. For example, figure 2 could mention the fact that the numbers reflect the spatial resolution in different regions of the domain. The legend of figure 3 is also obscured.
4. The 3P frequency should be defined when it is introduced on line 288. The low-pass filter cut-off frequency should also be motivated. Why is a value of 110% of 3P chosen, for example?
5. Appendix C is sufficiently informative that it should be included in the main body of the text.
6. There is a phantom (source) in line 464
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-2025-158-RC2
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- 1
The paper is a continuation of the work by the group, around the concept of Center of Wind Pressure (CoWP). The interest of this concept was the fact that it is a turbine-independent quantity, it is only function of the wind velocity field, and it correlated with turbine loads. However, for it to be useful, two main questions needed answers:
a) How exactly does CoWP provide load information for a given turbine and
b) Is CoWP pertinent and applicable using different numerical approaches (BEM, LES-AL, DES-BL).
To address those questions, the authors used the (turbine dependent) Load Center as load-related quantity and compared with CoWP. The load center is a quantity that can be computed by all the methods employed (although table 2 suggests it cannot be done for DES-BL). They also used three different inflo cases: a laminar/uniform, a sheared and a turbulent flow. They verified that for the turbulent (and most useful and realistic) case, the simulations presented time-histories of CoWP that were nearly proportional to the Load Center. This turbine-dependent constant of proportionality was verified to be nearly the same for the laminar case, resulting in a way to simply compute it.
I believe the paper successfully answered those question, and opened others, for example the applicability in wind farms and in simulations involving fluid-structure interactions.
My only concern is about the form of presentation of the ideas. It was difficult to see, in a first glance, the point of the paper, by reading the abstract, for example. Also, in the introduction, the point was a little hidden and, only in the conclusion we could really appreciate the contribution. I would suggest a reformulation of those partes of the text.
Also, a few points should be clarified. For example, I would not call LES the methodology applied for the Blade-Resolved case, since, in essence, it was a DES-type of approach. Also, I I do not see why the Load Centre cannot be computed by DES-BL simulations (as indicated in table 2).
I believe the scope of the paper and its results fit the purpose of the journal, but its form should be slightly improved before publishing.