ExaWind: A multifidelity modeling and simulation environment for wind energy

M A Sprague,S Ananthan,M Robinson,G Vijayakumar

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1452/1/012071

M A Sprague, S Ananthan + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1452/1/012071

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Abstract

We introduce the open-source ExaWind modeling and simulation environment for wind energy. The primary physics codes of ExaWind are Nalu-Wind and OpenFAST. Nalu-Wind is a wind-focused computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code that is coupled to the whole-turbine simulation code OpenFAST. The ExaWind environment was created under U.S. Department of Energy funding to achieve the highest-fidelity simulations of wind turbines and wind farms to date, with the goal of enabling disruptive changes to turbine and plant design and operation. Innovation will be gleaned through better understanding of the complex flow dynamics in wind farms, including wake evolution and the impact of wakes on downstream turbines and turbulent flow from complex terrain. High-fidelity predictive simulations employ hybrid turbulence models, geometry/boundary-layer-resolving CFD meshes, atmospheric turbulence, nonlinear structural dynamics, and fluid-structure interaction. While there is an emphasis on very high-fidelity simulations (e.g., blade resolved with full fluid-structure coupling), the ExaWind environment supports lower-fidelity modeling capabilities including actuator-line and -disk methods. Important in the development of ExaWind codes is that the codes scale well on today’s largest petascale supercomputers and on the next-generation platforms that will enable exascale computing.

Highlights

A key to achieving wide-scale deployment of wind energy is enabling a new understanding of, and ability to predict, the fundamental flow physics and coupled structural dynamics governing whole wind plant performance, including wake formation, complex-terrain impacts, and turbineturbine interactions through wakes
In early 2015, the U.S Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office sponsored a strategic-planning meeting [1] at which about 70 participants from industry, academia, and national laboratories were challenged to define the requirements for an opensource modeling and simulation environment for wind turbines and plants
Results show good agreement with the other computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations published in literature and provide confidence in the capability of Nalu-Wind simulations to predict the performance of megawatt-scale rotors operating in uniform inflow

Summary

Introduction

A key to achieving wide-scale deployment of wind energy is enabling a new understanding of, and ability to predict, the fundamental flow physics and coupled structural dynamics governing whole wind plant performance, including wake formation, complex-terrain impacts, and turbineturbine interactions through wakes. Based on an improved understanding of the driving flow physics and interactions with turbine and plant structures, new technology innovations can be proposed to advance performance and resiliency. High-fidelity modeling (HFM), coupled with high-performance computing (HPC), offers a potential path to drive significant reductions in the cost of wind energy by providing researchers and engineers with a virtual environment for exploring technology innovations and new operational strategies with confidence.

Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

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