Wind Tunnel Study on the Tip Speed Ratio’s Impact on a Wind Turbine Wake Development

Abstract

We propose an experimental study on the influence of the tip speed ratio on the spatial development of a wind turbine wake. To accomplish this, a scaled wind turbine is tested in a wind tunnel, and its turbulent wake measured for streamwise distances between 1 and 30 diameters. Two different tip speed ratios (5.3 and 4.5) are tested by varying the pitch angle of the rotor blades between the optimal setting and one with an offset of +6∘. In addition, we test two Reynolds numbers for the optimal tip speed ratio, ReD=1.9×105 and ReD=2.9×105 (based on the turbine diameter and the freestream velocity). For all cases, the mean streamwise velocity deficit at the centerline evolves close to a power law in the far wake, and we check the validity of the Jensen and Bastankhah-Porté-Agel engineering wind turbine wake models and the Townsend-George wake model for free shear flows for this region. Lastly, we present radial profiles of the mean streamwise velocity and test different radial models. Our results show that the lateral profile of the wake is properly fitted by a super-Gaussian curve close to the rotor, while Gaussian-like profiles adapt better in the far wake.

Keywords

• wind turbine wake
• wake models
• experimental fluid dynamics