• Energy Research

The American WAKE ExperimeNt (AWAKEN) is a multi-institutional field campaign focused on gathering critical observations of wind farm–atmosphere interactions. These interactions are responsible for a large portion of the uncertainty in wind plant modeling tools that are used to represent wind plant performance both prior to construction and during operation and can negatively impact wind energy profitability. The AWAKEN field campaign will provide data for validation, ultimately improving modeling and lowering these uncertainties. The field campaign is designed to address seven testable hypotheses through the analysis of the observations collected by numerous instruments at 13 ground-based locations and on five wind turbines. The location of the field campaign in Northern Oklahoma was chosen to leverage existing observational facilities operated by the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program in close proximity to five operating wind plants. The vast majority of the observations from the experiment are publicly available to researchers and industry members worldwide, which the authors hope will advance the state of the science for wind plants and lead to lower cost and increased reliability of wind energy systems.

Helical vortex systems, such as those found in the wakes of wind turbines, helicopter rotors and propellers, are subject to instabilities that lead to pairing between adjacent vortex loops. Certain modes of these instabilities can be triggered by an asymmetry in the rotor generating the vortices. In three-vortex systems, like those formed by many industrial rotors, the nonlinear vortex interactions are highly complex, introducing the need for a simple model to predict their dynamics. The current study presents a model for helical vortex systems based on an infinite strip of periodically repeating point vortices, whose motion can be computed using a single equation. This highly simplified model is shown to accurately reproduce the helical vortex dynamics predicted by a more sophisticated filament model and observed in water channel experiments on model rotors. The model is then used to investigate different types of vortex perturbations. Perturbation direction is found to have an important effect on the evolution of the instability, and displacements are observed to induce vortex pairing more quickly than circulation changes. These findings can be used to design asymmetric rotors that induce vortex breakdown more effectively, mitigating detrimental wake effects such as increased fatigue loading on downstream structures.

Abstract As wind energy continues to expand, increased interaction between wind farms and their surroundings can be expected. Using natural snowfall to visualize the air flow in the wake of a utility-scale wind turbine at unprecedented spatio-temporal resolution, intermittent periods of strong interaction between the wake and the ground surface are observed and the momentum flux during these periods is quantified. Significantly, two turbine operational-dependent pathways that lead to these periods of increased wake-ground interaction are identified. The first is caused by changes in tip speed ratio that lead to blade tip vortex leapfrogging, and the second results from increased power generation and the corresponding increase in tip vortex strength and wake expansion. Data from a nearby meteorological tower provides further insights into the strength and persistence of the enhanced flux for each pathway under different atmospheric conditions. Through the discovery of these pathways, discrepancies can be resolved between previous conflicting studies on the impact of wind turbines on surface fluxes. Furthermore, the results are used to generate a map of the potential impact of wind farms on surface momentum flux throughout the Continental United States, providing a valuable resource for wind farm siting decisions.

Super-large-scale particle image velocimetry (SLPIV) using natural snowfall is used to investigate the influence of nacelle and tower generated flow structures on the near-wake of a 2.5 MW wind turbine at the EOLOS field station. The analysis is based on the data collected in a field campaign on March 12th, 2017, with a sample area of 125 m (vertical) x 70 m (streamwise) centred on the plane behind the turbine support tower. The SLPIV measurement provides the velocity field over the entire rotor span, revealing a region of accelerated flow around the hub caused by the reduction in axial induction at the blade roots. The in-plane turbulent kinetic energy field shows an increase in turbulence in the regions of large shear behind the blade tips and the hub, and a reduction in turbulence behind the tower where the large-scale turbulent structures in the boundary layer are broken up. Snow voids reveal coherent structures shed from the blades, nacelle, and tower. The hub wake meandering frequency is quantified and found to correspond to the vortex shedding frequency of an Ahmed body (St=0.06). Persistent hub wake deflection is observed and shown to be connected with the turbine yaw error. In the region below the hub, strong interaction between the tower- and blade-generated structures is observed. The temporal characteristics of this interaction are quantified by the co-presence of two dominant frequencies, one corresponding to the blade vortex shedding at the blade pass frequency and the other corresponding to tower vortex shedding at St=0.2. This study highlights the influence of the tower and nacelle on the behaviour of the near-wake, informing model development and elucidating the mechanisms that influence wake evolution. 17 pages, 12 figures

In this study, we consider the impact of large-scale, convective structures in an unstable atmospheric boundary layer on wind turbine wakes. Simulation data from a high-fidelity large-eddy simulation (LES) of the AWAKEN wind farm site matching unstable atmospheric conditions were analyzed, and both turbine performance and wake behavior were affected based on their location relative to the convective structures. Turbines located in updraft regions of the flow experienced lower inflow velocity and generated less power, but their wakes were observed to recover faster and saw greater turbulent kinetic energy mixing higher in the boundary layer. The opposite effect was found for turbines in the downdraft regions of the convective structures. A simplified model of this wake behavior was also developed based on a two-dimensional k–ε Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes formulation. This simplified model included the effects of vertical transport, but could be efficiently solved as a parabolic system, and was found to capture similar wake modifications observed in the high-fidelity LES computations.

Atmospheric turbulent velocity fluctuations are known to increase wind turbine structural loading and accelerate wake recovery, but the impact of vortical coherent structures in the atmosphere on wind turbines has not yet been evaluated. The current study uses flow imaging with natural snowfall with a field of view spanning the inflow and near wake. Vortical coherent structures with diameters of the order of 1 m are identified and characterized in the flow approaching a 2.5 MW wind turbine in the region spanning the bottom blade tip elevation to hub height. Their impact on turbine structural loading, power generation and wake behaviour are evaluated. Long coherent structure packets $(\mathrm{\ \mathbin{\lower.3ex\hbox{$\buildrel> \over {\smash{\scriptstyle\sim}\vphantom{_x}}$}}\ }200\;\textrm{m)}$ are shown to increase fluctuating stresses on the turbine support tower. Large inflow vortices interact with the turbine blades, leading to deviations from the expected power generation. The sign of these deviations is related to the rotation direction of the vortices, with rotation in the same direction as the circulation on the blades leading to periods of power surplus, and the opposite rotation causing power deficit. Periods of power deficit coincide with wake contraction events. These findings highlight the importance of considering coherent structure properties when making turbine design and siting decisions.

Abstract Tip vortices in the wakes of wind turbines are known to have detrimental effects on downstream turbines such as reduced performance and increased fatigue loading. Rotor asymmetry is investigated as a passive method for mitigating these effects by triggering the helical vortex pairing instability. The study is conducted using MIRAS, a multi-fidelity vortex solver, to compare the wakes of the standard NREL 5MW turbine and a modified asymmetric version where one blade is extended radially relative to the other two. The asymmetric rotor is shown to successfully trigger the vortex instability, increasing the wake average velocity by a maximum of 3.5% and the power available to a downstream turbine by up to 11%. The turbulence in the wake of the asymmetric rotor is also modified, exhibiting enhanced mixing. Using the available power gains from the simulations and operational data from the Lillgrund wind farm, the total impact of rotor asymmetry on wind farm efficiency is estimated, showing increases > 2% under certain wind conditions. The findings of this study indicate that rotor asymmetry has strong potential as a wake control method and would benefit from further investigation to understand the effects of inflow turbulence and the impacts on rotor loading.