WIND TURBINE WAKE

MODELING
Why Are Wind Turbine Wakes Important?
WAKE EFFECT IMPACT:
• reduced power production, because of wake velocity deficits
• increased dynamic loads on the blades, because of higher turbulence
levels.
• the power loss of a downstream turbine can easily reach 40% in full-
wake conditions.
• When averaged over different wind directions, losses of
approximately 8% are observed for onshore farms and 12% for
offshore farms
Wind turbine wakes:
• near wakes
tip vortices form a
continuous vorticity sheet: a
shear layer.
• far wakes
the increased turbulence
intensity
Methods for wake modeling
• Analytical method
• Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory
• Vortex-lattice and vortex-particle methods
• Panel methods
• Generalized actuator (CFD)
• Direct method (CFD)
Governing equation for CFD model
• The incompressible Navier–Stokes equations are a suitable model to
describe the aerodynamics of wind turbine wakes

• This set of equations provides a complete model for the description

of turbulent flows, it is not easily solved
• It create wide range of time and length scale
largest turbulence scale of order of 1 km and smallest of 1mm near
blade
TURBULENCE MODELING
RANS (Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes methods)
• Velocity and pressure are split in an average and a fluctuation, the so-
called Reynolds decomposition.

• The term is called the Reynolds stress tensor

• Reynolds stress tensor can be related to the mean velocity gradients
via a turbulent ‘eddy’ viscosity T:

• The RANS equation become

Methods for solving T
• K- model
two additional partial differential equations are introduced, one for
the turbulent kinetic energy k and one for the turbulent diffusion 

• K- model
stress transport (SST) limiter, is more convenient near blade surfaces
LES()
• In LES, the large eddies of the flow are calculated, whereas the eddies
smaller than the grid are modeled with a subgrid-scale model
• scale separation is carried out by spatially filtering the velocity field
• this filtering operation is defined as a convolution integral

• G(x-,) is the convolution kernel, depending on the filter width

• The subgrid velocity is then defined as
 LES
• Applying the filtering operation to the Navier–Stokes equations
WAKE MODELING
• solving navier-stokes is still equation a formidable job for wake
calculations
• The reason for this is the divergence-free constraint in the equation
which requires that the pressure is calculated implicitly
• Two methods are parabolization and linearization
PARABOLIZATION
• Also known as boundary layer wake model
• Obtained by neglecting both the diffusion and the pressure gradient in
streamwise direction
• This allowed for a fast solution by space marching, but the (pressure
driven) expansion of the wake cannot be predicted properly
• Since the parabolicity assumption is not valid in the near wake, the
calculations started at 2 d downstream of the rotor, where the wake is
assumed to be fully developed.
• Improvements have been made by using a variable-length near wake
• The linearization of the Navier–Stokes equations, combined with a
spectral method allows for a very fast solution of entire wind farms
• The results for the velocity field are most accurate in the far wake,
where the assumption of small perturbations (linearization) is justified
Linearized models
• solving navier-stokes is still equation a formidable job for wake
calculations
• The reason for this is the divergence-free constraint in the equation
which requires that the pressure is calculated implicitly