Blind test comparison on the wake behind a yawed wind turbine

Abstract

This article summarizes the results of the “Blind test 5” workshop, which was held in Visby, Sweden, in May 2017. This study compares the numerical predictions of the wake flow behind a model wind turbine operated in yaw to experimental wind tunnel results. Prior to the workshop, research groups were invited to predict the turbine performance and wake flow properties using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. For this purpose, the power, thrust, and yaw moments for a 30∘ yawed model turbine, as well as the wake's mean and turbulent streamwise and vertical flow components, were measured in the wind tunnel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). In order to increase the complexity, a non-yawed downstream turbine was added in a second test case, while a third test case challenged the modelers with a new rotor and turbine geometry.

Four participants submitted predictions using different flow solvers, three of which were based on large eddy simulations (LES) while another one used an improved delayed detached eddy simulation (IDDES) model. The performance of a single yawed turbine was fairly well predicted by all simulations, both in the first and third test cases. The scatter in the downstream turbine performance predictions in the second test case, however, was found to be significantly larger. The complex asymmetric shape of the mean streamwise and vertical velocities was generally well predicted by all the simulations for all test cases. The largest improvement with respect to previous blind tests is the good prediction of the levels of TKE in the wake, even for the complex case of yaw misalignment. These very promising results confirm the mature development stage of LES/DES simulations for wind turbine wake modeling, while competitive advantages might be obtained by faster computational methods.