67th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (November 23, 2014 — November 25, 2014)

V0051: Turbulent Transport in the Wakes of Wind Turbines

Authors

• Sarah Aguasvivas Manzano, Department of Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University
• Pankaj K. Jha, Department of Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University
• Joseph A. Plummer, Department of Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University
• Earl P. N. Duque, Intelligent Light
• Sven Schmitz, Department of Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2014.GFM.V0051

The fluid dynamics video considers two staggered arrays of NREL 5-MW
turbines separated by six rotor diameters in a moderately convective atmospheric
boundary layer (ABL). The moderately convective atmospheric boundary-layer flow
data were obtained from a precursor ABL simulation using a Large-
Eddy Simulation (LES) framework within OpenFOAM. The mean
wind speed at hub height is 8m/s, and the surface roughness is 0.2m.
The actuator line method (ALM) is used to model the wind turbine
blades by means of body forces added to the momentum equation. The
fluid dynamics video shows the tip vortices emanating from
the blades from various viewpoints. The vortices become unstable and
break down into large-scale turbulent structures. We observed that vortex instability and breakdown are associated with turbulent vertical updraft structures and low-speed axial flow regions.