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Modelling turbulence in axisymmetric wakes: an application to wind turbine wakes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2024

Majid Bastankhah*
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
Jenna K. Zunder
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
Peter E. Hydon
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NF, UK
Charles Deebank
Affiliation:
EnFlo Research Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK
Marco Placidi
Affiliation:
EnFlo Research Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK
*
†Email address for correspondence: majid.bastankhah@durham.ac.uk

Abstract

A novel fast-running model is developed to predict the three-dimensional (3-D) distribution of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) in axisymmetric wake flows. This is achieved by mathematically solving the partial differential equation of the TKE transport using the Green's function method. The developed solution reduces to a double integral that can be computed numerically for a wake prescribed by any arbitrary velocity profile. It is shown that the solution can be further simplified to a single integral for wakes with Gaussian-like velocity-deficit profiles. Wind tunnel experiments were performed to compare model results against detailed 3-D laser Doppler anemometry data measured within the wake flow of a porous disk subject to a uniform free-stream flow. Furthermore, the new model is used to estimate the TKE distribution at the hub-height level of the rotating non-axisymmetric wake of a model wind turbine immersed in a rough-wall boundary layer. Our results show the important impact of operating conditions on TKE generation in wake flows, an effect not fully captured by existing empirical models. The wind-tunnel data also provide insights into the evolution of important turbulent flow quantities such as turbulent viscosity, mixing length and the TKE dissipation rate in wake flows. Both mixing length and turbulent viscosity are found to increase with the streamwise distance. The turbulent viscosity, however, reaches a plateau in the far-wake region. Consistent with the non-equilibrium theory, it is also observed that the normalised energy dissipation rate is not constant, and it increases with the streamwise distance.

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press.
Figure 0

Figure 1. Sketch, and overall dimensions, of the wind-tunnel set-up: (a) disk in the free-stream case, (b) wind turbine (WT) in the boundary-layer case and (c) close-up of the three-dimensional laser Doppler anemometry (LDA) set-up (not to scale). Here, $\tilde {U}, \tilde {V}, \tilde {W}$ indicate the mean velocities in the Cartesian coordinate system.

Figure 1

Table 1. Summary of the experimental conditions in the reference cases (i.e. with no turbine/disk). Boundary-layer characteristics are derived at $x/D=2$, although slowly varying in $x$. Here, $u_*$ is the friction velocity, $z_0$ and $D$ are the roughness length and the turbine/disk diameter in mm, $Re_\delta$ is the BL thickness Reynolds number, $\varLambda$ the integral length scale and $TI$ is the turbulence intensity.

Figure 2

Figure 2. (a) Vertical and (b) lateral profiles of normalised streamwise velocity ($U/U_0$) and normalised TKE ($k/U_0^2$) for the BL case. Horizontal lines represent the hub and the tip positions.

Figure 3

Figure 3. Radial profiles of normalised velocity deficit ($\Delta U/U_0$) at different $x/D$ based on experiments, Gaussian and double Gaussian (referred to as D-Gaussian) wake models. Solid lines show the BL case and dashed lines show the FS case.

Figure 4

Figure 4. (a) Lateral profiles of normalised azimuthal velocity ($W/U_0$) at hub height. (b) Ratio of the maximum $W$ to the maximum $\Delta U$ at different $x/D$.

Figure 5

Figure 5. Radial profiles of normalised wake-added turbulent quantities at different $x/D$. Solid lines show the BL case and dashed lines show the FS case.

Figure 6

Figure 6. Evolution of normalised (a) mixing length ($l_m/D$), (b) turbulent viscosity ($\nu _t/U_0D$) including data reported by Zong & Porté-Agel (2020b), (c) energy dissipation rate ($C_\varepsilon$) and (d) $l_m^2/C_\varepsilon D^2$, with $x/D$. The black circles are from the BL case and the blue circles are from the FS case.

Figure 7

Figure 7. The TKE budget for both cases at $x/D=5$ (terms normalised by $U_0^3/D$). Advection (blue), diffusion (red), production (black), dissipation (green).

Figure 8

Figure 8. Model predictions of radial profiles of normalised wake-added TKE ($k_w/U_0^2$) in comparison with the experimental data and the empirical models of Crespo & Hernandez (1996) and Ishihara & Qian (2018) at different streamwise positions. The BL case is shown in black and the FS case in blue.