Integration of body force methods for higher precision Wake Modelling simulations for offshore applications

Vindturbiner ekstraherer energi fra vinden, og følgelig vil vindhastigheten bli redusert nedstrøms hver vindturbin. De lave vindhastighetene i området nedstrøms en vindturbin kalles en vake. Vaker gir redusert energiproduksjon. Nå som vindparkene bli større og større, med opptil flere hundre vindturbiner i en vindpark, har vaketapene blitt et stadig viktigere tema innenfor vindsektoren. Målet med dette doktorgradsarbeidet er å etablere nøyaktige vakemodeller basert på CFD, "Computational Fluid Dynamics". Modellene vil bli bruk for å optimalisere plasseringen av hver turbin i en vindpark for å redusere vaketapet. Dette vil bidra til å gjøre vindkraft mer lønnsomt både i form av økt energiproduksjon, men også ved å redusere belastningene på hver enkelt vindturbin som igjen vil redusere kostnadene for vedlikehold.

A Nordic Consortium was initialized in 2009 as a close collaboration between KTH Royal Institute of Technology, The Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and Gotland University. Additionally a number of industrial partners have been involved, among them W indSim AS. The aim of the Nordic Consortium is to increase the understanding of flows inside and around wind farm, in particular wake effects in large off shore farms. The PhD study will be performed within the framework of the Nordic Consortium to ens ure that the experience from the larger research group and fundamental studies of the flow around wind turbines and numerical modelling is used. The aim is to further develop and implement the models with intermediate complexity to improve the industrial codes. The software WindSim is today widely used commercially and it is very suitable for wind estimation since it is has a user friendly interface and is specialized for this purpose. It also has models for turbine representation that allows simulations where interaction between turbines is possible. This is needed when simulating clusters of turbines, i.e., wind farms. This, combined with an already established collaboration within the consortium, makes WindSim a very suitable platform for development. This project will use experience from many years in the Nordic Consortium and utilize it in commercial software that could be used by the wind energy industry.