Consideration of the Behaviour of a Wind Turbine Wake Using High-Fidelity CFD Simulations

Abstract

During operation of a wind turbine, wake flow occurs behind the wind turbine, reducing the amount of power generation and the life of the downwind wind turbine. To understand wind turbine wake flow, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted using 'RIAM-COMPACT' to reproduce wind turbine wake flow. There is no significant difference in the flow field of the wind turbine wake between upwind-type and downwind-type turbines. In the 5D downstream of the wind turbine, the vertical distribution of the mainstream velocity component is almost the same regardless of the power of the inflow profile in the swept area. When the inflow wind has a wind direction change of up to 10 degrees, the wind turbine wake is quite diffuse, and its vertical distribution is in good agreement with the field measurements made by the vertical profile lidar.

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