UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN

Analysis of Wind Spectra and

Coherence in Neutral Stability at
Sea Based on Two LES Codes
Xu Ning
13.01.2021
 UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN

MOTIVATION 1
To compare the performance of SOWFA and PALM in reproducing flow characteristics in a neutral
boundary layer (NBL), with the focus on the wind spectra and coherence.

Solver SOWFA PALM Case Information

Finite Lx = 2560m Ly = 2560m Lz = 960m
Discretization Finite Volume
Element
nx = 256 ny = 256 nz = 96
Unstructured Structured
Mesh Cyclic boundary condition
Collocated Staggered
Wind speed: 8.0m/s at height of 90m
Pressure Multigrid and
Multigrid Temperature: uniform 300K up to 700m with
solver FFT
strong capping inversion above
Deardoff
Roughness length = 0.001
Available Standard, 1980,
SGS model Dynamic, etc. Dynamic, Stability condition: Neutral
etc. Simulation time: 40h + 2400s (10Hz)
 UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN

OBJECTIVE 1
To compare the performance of SOWFA and PALM in reproducing flow characteristics in a neutral
boundary layer (NBL), with the focus on the wind spectra and coherence.

Motivation Case Information

Ø LES becomes useful tool in wind
industry.
Ø Better understanding of models,
less uncertainties.
Ø Spectra and coherence reveal the
energy distribution and spatial
structure of multi-scale turbulence.
Ø Accurate wind field reconstruction
is necessary for load analysis of
wind turbines with large rotor size.
Lx = 2560m Ly = 2560m Lz = 960m
nx = 256 ny = 256 nz = 96
Cyclic boundary condition
Wind speed: 8.0m/s at height of 90m
Roughness length = 0.001
Stability condition: Neutral
Simulation time: 40h + 2400s (10Hz)
 UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN

RESULTS - Profiles 2

• Results of wind shear and veer from two codes

have good agreement.
• Turbulence intensity near ground predicted by

Turbulent streamwise velocity

SOWFA is higher than PALM. SOWFA
• Dimentionless wind gradient shows a quite neutral

at height of 100m
stability condition.

Wind Speed and Direction Turbulence Intensity

PALM
 UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN

RESULTS – Statistics and Spectra 3

Sensitivity of Grid Size
Probability Distribution of Turbulent Velocity (H = 100m)
H = 20m
• The probability
distribution of turbulent
velocity for both
SOWFA and PALM
show consistency.
• Given the same mesh H = 100m
resolution, SOWFA
has longer inertial sub- PSD of three velocity
range than PALM. components (H = 100m)

• Both two codes show

isotropic features in
H = 180m
inertial sub-range and
higher frequency
region.
 UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN

RESULTS – Coherence – Lateral Separation 4

• In our case, strong coherence exists with a separation less than 80m in very low-frequency range (0.0Hz < f <
0.02Hz).
• Two models show some unexpected coherence oscillations and phase distributions especially for 40m separation.

SOWFA

PALM
 UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN

RESULTS – Coherence – Vertical Separation

• Two models illustrate strong coherence for 20m separation. However, SOWFA predicts smaller but still noticeable
coherence for larger separations, while PALM show nearly no coherence for separations larger than 20m.
• Similarly, abnormal oscillations of coherence occur in two models. This is more obvious when separation is small.

SOWFA

PALM
uib.no