19me Congrs Franais de Mcanique

Marseille, 24-28 aot 2009

Impact of wind turbines interactions on power production

M. JOURIEHa, F. MASSOUHa, P. KUSZLAa, I. DOBREVa, B. MAALOUFa a. Arts et Mtiers-ParisTech, 151 Bd. de lHpital, 75013 Paris, France

Rsum :
Linteraction entre les machines dun parc olien est le problme le plus important prendre en compte dans la prparation de la construction du parc. Grce aux progrs importants de la simulation numrique, ltude de linteraction est ralisable. Par contre, il est trs difficile de simuler la gomtrie relle de plus dune olienne en mme temps. Pour cette raison il est indispensable dutiliser un modle hybride beaucoup plus simple et capable de bien reprsenter une olienne. Dans cette optique un modle hybride bas sur le concept du disque actif est propos et utilis pour tudier le dveloppement du sillage olien et linteraction entre des oliennes voisines. Ltude prsente de linteraction commence par le cas de deux machines puis par une srie de plusieurs machines alignes paralllement au vent. Deux paramtres sont tests, la distance entre les machines et la vitesse du vent. La simulation numrique montre que la perte relative dnergie subie par une machine place dans le sillage dune autre diminue au fur et mesure de laugmentation de la distance entre les machines et aussi avec laugmentation de la vitesse du vent linfini amont. Dans tous les cas tudis, les donnes utilises pour la simulation sont prises partir de lolienne bien connue NREL phase II quipe du profil de pale S809.

Abstract :
The interaction between wind turbines in a wind farm is a very important problem which must be taken into account during the preparation of park construction. Due to the important progress of numerical simulation, the interaction study is achievable. Meanwhile, it is very difficult to simulate more than one wind turbine in the same time using their real geometry. For this reason, it is necessary to use a simple hybrid model able to represent a wind turbine. To get this goal, a hybrid model based on the actuator disk concept is used to study the wind turbine wake development and the interaction between the neighbouring wind turbines. In this work, two interaction cases will be presented, firstly between two machines and then between several machines which have the same rotation axe parallel to the wind direction. Two parameters are tested: spacing between machines and upstream wind velocity. Numerical simulation shows that the relative loss of energy suffered by a machine placed in the wake of another decreases as the distance between the machines increases and also as the upstream wind velocity increases. In all studied cases, the data used for numerical simulation are taken from the well known wind turbine NREL Phase II equipped with the S809 blade profile.

Mots clefs : Turbines, Wake interaction, Hybrid Model, Numerical Simulation 1 Introduction

The behaviour of wind turbine wake is a very important issue that must be taken into account during the wind farm design. Generally in the wake of a wind turbine, the wind speed drops and the level of turbulence increases [12]. In these circumstances, if a wind turbine is located in the wake of another one, it receives a wind that has already surrendered much of its energy and power production will therefore be affected. In addition, the unsteady phenomena existing in the wake create dynamic loads which can accelerate long-term material fatigue and reduce the lifetime of blades and other loaded components [1, 2, 8]. To avoid these problems, there should be a minimum distance between the turbines. However, the financial value of the land and the infrastructure necessary in a wind farm tend to bring the machines as close as possible. Then, to determine the minimum distance between the turbines and thereby increase the profitability of a wind farm, it is important to take into account the interaction between wind turbines and their contribution as part of roughness in the wind farm [3, 4, 13]. This distance depends on surface roughness and can be great in the 1

19me Congrs Franais de Mcanique

Marseille, 24-28 aot 2009

case of offshore wind turbines. The first offshore farms were built at Helgoland in Germany in 1989, Blekinge in Sweden in 1990 and Vindeby in Denmark in 1991 [6]. In these cases, the effects of wake (decrease in wind velocity and increase of downstream turbulence) spread over greater distances downstream of the wind turbine compared to the case of a land park, not surprisingly due to the lowest roughness of the sea surface compared with that of the earths surface[16]. To a lesser extent, we might mention the effect of turbulence intensity of incident flow and also the atmospheric stability (natural, stable, unstable)[9]. In this paper, a study is presented about the interaction between several identical wind turbines located one behind the other. It shows how power generated by the machines depends on the spacing and on free stream velocity. Interaction is studied using CFD calculation simultaneously with appropriate hybrid model based on an actuator disk concept which represents the behaviour of each wind turbine. The wake effect is first studied in the case of tow machines and later several machines placed in a row are studied. All these calculations are made assuming the presence of wind turbines of type NREL phase II [7].

Simulation of the interaction between two machines using a hybrid model

The construction of a wind farm is often based on the results of calculations of a single turbine wake. Normally, to take into account the combined effects of different wakes, the possibility of overlap that can be accumulated from different wakes is the most commonly used [9, 10, 14, 15]. In this work, a more direct approach than the previous methods is used. CFD calculation including simultaneously hybrid models which represent the wind turbines will be performed over the entire field of the wind park. Thus a simulation of the wind farm and of the interaction between wind turbines will be obtained. The hybrid model used is based on the concept of actuator disk and in this way the wind turbine rotor is represented by volume forces during CFD calculation. These forces vary radially and are uniformly distributed circumferentially [10, 12, 17].

FIG. 1 - Computational domain containing two hybrid models AD. The computation is done with the CFD code Fluent. All results are obtained in the case of a stationary and incompressible flow with a model of turbulence k-w-SST as proposed in [11]. The first study presented here is dedicated to the interaction between two wind turbines. The computational domain used in this work is a cylindrical volume with 20D length and 10D diameter, figure 1. Its axis is the same as that of the rotating machines. The studied wind turbines are supposed to be the well known NREL Phase II type with the s809 blade airfoil type. The wind turbine is modelled by an actuator disk with a similar diameter and a thickness e = c sin , Where c is the average airfoil chord and is the pitch angle. This actuator disk volume is meshed with 360 000 cells. The first wind turbine is located at 5D from the domain main entrance. Different positions of the downstream wind turbine are studied in order to investigate the influence of the distance between the two machines. Each disk is then surrounded by coaxial cylinders, indicated Blocks 1 to 5 on figure 1, with diameters from 1.5D to 5D and lengths from c to 7.5D. The aim of these blocks is to achieve high quality mesh intensity around the hybrid model; mesh intensity decrease from block to another more far away of hybrid model. The total number of meshes, taking into account both machines modelled, is equal to approximately 1 700 000 computing cells. 2

19me Congrs Franais de Mcanique

Marseille, 24-28 aot 2009

Figure 2 shows the computed axial velocity field in the case where the distance between the two machines is 10D and the upstream velocity is 10 m/s. The interaction between the two machines is quite clear and the axial velocity downstream the second wind turbine is lower than in the first one.

FIG. 2 - Axial velocity field, upstream velocity 10m/s.

2.1 Effect of spacing between wind turbines

The distance between the two machines is a very important element to be taken into account when designing a wind farm. Generally, this distance is taken between 5 and 9 D in the dominant direction and between 3 and 5 D in the direction perpendicular to the dominant direction, where D is the wind turbine diameter [5]. In this work, the effect of distance between two machines is studied. As already explained, each turbine is replaced by a hybrid model. In these calculations, upstream velocity is 10 m/s and the turbulence intensity is 10%.

FIG. 3 - Power loss as a function of wind turbines spacing. Figure 3, represent the effect of wind turbines spacing on the power loss of the downstream wind turbine. The presented power loss [((P1-P2) / P1) 100] is expressed here as a percent of the upstream wind turbine power. P1 and P2 are respectively the powers of the upstream and the downstream machines. The presented results are obtained for spacing variations from 5D to 15D. It can be easily seen that power loss decreases when the spacing is increased and that the important loss variations are observed for low values of spacing.

19me Congrs Franais de Mcanique

Marseille, 24-28 aot 2009

2.2 Effect of upstream velocity

In this part, upstream velocity influence has been studied for two machines located one behind the other with variable axial spacing between 5D and 15D. To show this effect, three values of upstream velocity have been chosen, 8 m/s, 10 m/s and 12 m/s. The dependency of power loss to spacing for three upstream velocities is represented on figure 4. For the particular case of the studied wind turbine (constant pitch and passive stall regulation), the results show the effect of wind velocity. For a given distance between two machines, the relative power loss is higher for the lower upstream velocity. It is clear that this behaviour depends on the wind turbine performance and such a study must be carried on for each new case. The purpose of the present method was actually to allow the very quick simulation of a new wind farm and is thus here very helpful for designers.

FIG. 4 - Power loss as a function of wind turbines spacing.

2.3 Interaction between several machines placed in series

The study presented here concerns the case of 6 wind turbines placed in series in the same direction as the wind. The distance between the consecutive machines is constant and is equal to 5D. The computational domain used is a cylindrical volume with 30D length and 10D diameter. The wind turbines are supposed to be NREL Phase II type and as in the precedent study, each one is represented by an actuator disk with the same kind of meshing. The computed axial velocity field is presented on Figure 5 for an upstream velocity equal to 10 m/s. This figure shows clearly the interaction between the successive machines. Notice that to respect the principle of mass conservation, the global stream tube increases its diameter progressively because of the continuous decreasing of the axial velocity inside it. Figure 5 shows also that the deficit in the axial velocity downstream each machine increases as this machine is far away from the domain entrance.

FIG. 5 - Axial velocity field for six wind turbines.

19me Congrs Franais de Mcanique

Marseille, 24-28 aot 2009

FIG. 6 - Power of wind turbines aligned on the same rotation axis.

Conclusions

In this work, the interaction between wind turbines is studied using CFD and a hybrid model approach to replace the wind turbine. The hybrid model used is based on the concept of actuator disk and in this way the wind turbine rotor is represented by volume forces during CFD calculation. Thus the computation time is decreased significantly because there is no need to model the real blade geometry and the boundary layer. The interaction is studied first between two machines only and later between a series of six wind turbines aligned on the same rotation axis parallel to wind direction. The most important effect appears to be the spacing between wind turbines. Indeed, it is clear that the power produced by a wind turbine located in the wake of another one increases with the increasing of distance between them. On the other hand, the upstream velocity is also an important factor. It is observed that the loss of power of a wind turbine in the wake of another is less sensitive when this velocity increases. Unfortunately, there are no experimental results for comparisons with numerical results. The prospects for this work would be to conduct an experimental study of the interaction between two downscaled wind turbines.

References
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19me Congrs Franais de Mcanique

Marseille, 24-28 aot 2009

[11] L. Davidson. An Introduction to Turbulence Models. Department of Thermo and Fluid Dynamics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gtemberg, Sweden, 2001. [12] M. Jourieh. Dveloppement dun modle reprsentatif dune olienne afin dtudier limplantation de plusieurs machines sur un parc olien. Thse de doctorat de lENSAM-Paris, France, 2007. [13] N. M. Magnusson and A. S. Smedman. Air flow behind wind turbines. Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics, 80(1-2):169189, 1999. [14] P. B. S. Lissaman. Energy effectiveness of arbitrary arrays of wind turbines. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 17th, New Orleans, 19-17 Jan, 1979. [15] R. J. Templin. An estimation of the interaction of windmills in widespread arrays. National Aeronautical Establisshment, Laboratory Report LTR-LA-171, Ottawa, December, 1974. [16] S. Frandsen and M. L. Thgersen. Integrated fatigue loading for wind turbines in wind farms by combining ambient turbulence and wakes. Wind Engineering, 23(6):327340, 1999. [17] M. Jourieh, P. Kuszla, I. Dobrev, F. Massouh Hybrid rotor models for the numerical optimisation of wind turbine farms, 1st International Symposium on Environment, Identities and Mediterranean Area, IEEE (ISEIM'2006), July 9-13, 2006 - Corte Ajaccio.