Wind Turbine Wake Assessment Using an Open Source CFD Code

Abstract

This paper proposes a numerical analysis of wakes developed downstream horizontal axis wind turbines placed in cluster. The rotors are defined as actuator disc applied at specific grid region and injected in the momentum balances. The dynamics of surrounding environment is solved by Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. The calculations are executed via an open source computational Code_Saturne based on the finite volume methods. As the simulation quality depends on the acuteness of the wake modeling, the study is mainly focused on the analysis of single and multiple wakes. Therefore, interactions effects between various wind generators in cluster are evaluated in order to optimize their positioning in wind farm.