Validation of a Lattice Boltzmann Solver Against Wind Turbine Response and Wake Measurements

Abstract

Two of the major limitations facing the adoption of large-eddy simulation (LES) to the industry today are a lack of validation against full-scale measurements and the high computational cost. The lattice Boltzmann method is an approach to conduct LES that is suitable for parallelization on graphics processing units, leading to reduction in energy-to-solution by multiple orders of magnitude compared to Navier-Stokes solvers. We validate the lattice Boltzmann solver VirtualFluids against the measurements published in the SWiFT benchmark and the results obtained with LES by the participants in the benchmark. We compare inflow, turbine response and wake quantities and show that our method yields similar results. While the other LES methods vary in the required energy by one order of magnitude, our methodology is always about one to two orders of magnitude more efficient. The benchmark allows for a comparison to a large number of models, however, the scale of the turbine is not representative of modern turbines and therefore important challenges of modern turbines, such as blade deflection, could not be validated.