Abstract
The wake of the 2MW NM80 wind turbine subject to non-uniform and laminar inflow conditions is simulated using CFD with a fully resolved rotor geometry, an actuator line method and actuator disc method, respectively and in all simulations the wake properties are compared. Based on the comparison the strengths and limitations of the models are pointed out.
Highlights
Most CFD studies of wind turbine wakes use actuator disc (AD) [1] or actuator line (AL) [2, 3, 4] models for representing the rotor because these models do not require the rotor boundary layer to be resolved, and demand much lower spatial and temporal resolution than simulations where the rotor geometry is fully resolved (FR)[5, 6]
The use of AD and AL models are usually justified by the assumption that after a few rotor diameters the details of the wind turbine rotor geometry become irrelevant to the flow behaviour
Fi Fim,AaLx where index i refer to the given load component, i = n, θ and Fim,AaLx is the maximum value of load component i of the AL simulation
Summary
Most CFD studies of wind turbine wakes use actuator disc (AD) [1] or actuator line (AL) [2, 3, 4] models for representing the rotor because these models do not require the rotor boundary layer to be resolved, and demand much lower spatial and temporal resolution than simulations where the rotor geometry is fully resolved (FR)[5, 6]. It is important to quantify how much physics is lost in the wake when using AD and AL models in comparison with FR computation. To address this question, a systematic comparison of the three different types of wind turbine models has been initiated. In laminar inflow the three methods showed good agreement in terms of predicted mean velocity deficit up to 2 diameters downstream of the turbine. In the present work the comparison of the methods is extended by using them for simulating the wake of the 2MW NM80 wind turbine subject to non-uniform and laminar inflow conditions
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