Field and laboratory experiments were performed to unravel the structure of the power output fluctuations of horizontal-axis wind turbines based on incoming flow turbulence. The study considers the power data of three wind turbines of rotor sizes 0.12, 3.2, and 96 m, with rated power spanning six decades from the order of 10 0 to 10 6 W. The 0.12 m wind turbine was tested in a wind tunnel while the 3.2 and 96 m wind turbines were operated in open fields under approximately neutrally stratified thermal conditions. Incoming flow turbulence was characterised by hotwire and sonic anemometers for the wind tunnel and field set-ups. While previous works have observed a filtering behaviour in wind turbine power output, this exact behaviour has not, to date, been properly characterised. Based on the spectral structure of the incoming flow turbulence at hub height, and the mechanical and structural properties of the turbines, a physical basis for the behaviour of temporal power fluctuations and their spectral structure is found with potential applications in turbine control and numerical simulations. Consistent results are observed across the geometrical scales of the wind turbines investigated, suggesting no Reynolds number dependence in the tested range.
The structure of the turbulence-driven power fluctuations in a wind farm is fundamentally described from basic concepts. A derived tuning-free model, supported with experiments, reveals the underlying spectral content of the power fluctuations of a wind farm. It contains two power-law trends and oscillations in the relatively low- and high-frequency ranges. The former is mostly due to the turbulent interaction between the flow and the turbine properties, whereas the latter is due to the advection between turbine pairs. The spectral wind-farm scale power fluctuations Φ_{P} exhibit a power-law decay proportional to f^{-5/3-2} in the region corresponding to the turbulence inertial subrange and at relatively large scales, Φ_{P}∼f^{-2}. Due to the advection and turbulent diffusion of large-scale structures, a spectral oscillation exists with the product of a sinusoidal behavior and an exponential decay in the frequency domain.
Wind tunnel experiments were performed to investigate the effects of downstream-facing winglets on the wake dynamics, power and thrust of a model wind turbine. Two similar turbines with and without winglets were operated under the same conditions. Results show an increase in the power and thrust coefficients of 8.2% and 15.0% for the wingletted case. A simple theoretical treatment of a two-turbine system suggests a possible positive tradeoff between increasing power and thrust coefficients at a wind farm scale. The higher thrust coefficient created a region of enhanced mean shear and turbulence in the outer portion of the wake. The winglets did not significantly change the tip-vortex strength, but higher levels of turbulence in the far wake decreased the tip-vortex strength. Because of the increased mean shear in the wingletted turbine's wake, the Reynolds stresses were higher, potentially leading to a higher energy flux downstream.
The potential benefits associated with harnessing available momentum and reducing turbulence levels in a wind farm composed of wind turbines of alternating size are investigated through wind tunnel experiments. A variable size turbine array composed of 3 by 8 model wind turbines is placed in a boundary layer flow developed over both a smooth and rough surfaces under neutrally stratified thermal conditions. Cross-wire anemometry is used to capture high resolution and simultaneous measurements of the streamwise and vertical velocity components at various locations along the central plane of the wind farm. A laser tachometer is employed to obtain the instantaneous angular velocity of various turbines. The results suggest that wind turbine size heterogeneity in a wind farm introduces distinctive flow interactions not possible in its homogeneous counterpart. In particular, reduced levels of turbulence around the wind turbine rotors may have positive effects on turbulent loading. The turbines also appear to perform quite uniformly along the entire wind farm, whereas surface roughness impacts the velocity recovery and the spectral content of the turbulent flow within the wind farm. Copyright
Building upon a recent study that showed windbreaks to be effective in increasing the power output of a wind turbine, the potential of windbreaks in a large wind farm is explored using simplified formulations. A top-down boundary layer approach is combined with methods of estimating both the roughness effects of windbreaks and the induced inviscid speed-up for nearby turbines to investigate power production impact for several layouts of infinite wind farms. Results suggest that the negative impact of windbreak wakes for an infinite wind farm will outweigh the local inviscid speed-up for realistic inter-turbine spacings, with the break-even point expected at a spacing of ∼25 rotor diameters. However, the possibility that windbreaks may be applicable in finite and other wind farm configurations remains open. Inspection of the windbreak porosity reveals an impact on the magnitude of power perturbation, but not whether the change is positive or negative. Predictions from the boundary-layer approach are validated with power measurements from large-eddy simulations.
Using a physics-based approach, we infer the impact of the coherence of atmospheric turbulence on the power fluctuations of wind farms. Application of the random-sweeping hypothesis reveals correlations characterized by advection and turbulent diffusion of coherent motions. Those contribute to local peaks and troughs in the power spectrum of the combined units at frequencies corresponding to the advection time between turbines, which diminish in magnitude at high frequencies. Experimental inspection supports the results from the random-sweeping hypothesis in predicting spectral characteristics, although the magnitude of the coherence spectrum appears to be over-predicted. This deviation is attributed to the presence of turbine wakes, and appears to be a function of the turbulence approaching the first turbine in a pair.
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