A numerical study of rainfall effects on wind turbine wakes

Abstract

Rainfall has significant impacts on the operations of wind turbines due to erosion of turbine blades and alterations in aerodynamic performance of wind turbines. However, little is understood in the influences of rainfall on wind turbine wakes. In this study, large-eddy simulation (LES) coupled with actuator-disk model with rotation (ADM-R) is used to investigate impacts of rainfall on wind turbine wakes. A double Euler method is employed in ADM-R to simulate the rainfall injection. The results of the model indicate that rainfall reduces wind speed in the sweep area and increases wind speed in the outer region of the top tip level by 2.1 %. Furthermore, rainfall reduces turbulence intensity in the near wake and outer wake region of the top tip (up to 2.0 %), with the influence extending up to 10 d (diameters of the wind turbine) in the downstream. These changes have a positive correlation with the rainfall intensity and an inverse correlation with the wind speed. The mean kinetic energy (MKE) and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) budget analysis reveals that (1) the turbulent radial transport variation of MKE is the primary reason for the rainfall-induced wind speed change; (2) the change in shear production of TKE is responsible for the rainfall-induced turbulent intensity change; (3) the rainfall-induced Reynolds stress −u′w′‾ is the dominant factor of this dynamics.