Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation to Predict the Airflow and Turbulence in a Wind Farm in Open Complex Terrain

Abstract

The performance of a wind turbine depends on the characteristics of the airflow as well as the conditions of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). To evaluate accurately the amount of wind energy, it is required to have the exact height distribution of wind speed for the considered implementation site of a wind turbine. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation predictions provided by the standard k-ε turbulence model under neutral conditions were examined. The objective is to investigate the influence of hill slopes in the microscale wind farm on the airflow velocity to optimize the location of wind turbines. The results were validated by RUSHIL wind tunnel data and were compared with flat terrain.

Keywords

• airflow
• atmospheric boundary layer
• CFD
• RANS
• turbulence model
• wind turbine