Advanced Medium-Order Modelling of a Wind Turbine Wake with a Vortex Particle Method Integrated within a Multilevel Code

Abstract

The current paper describes an aerodynamic model for treatment of wind turbine wakes. For accurate treatment of the wake evolution for the near wake, along with interaction with local flow features, a model with low numerical diffusion has been chosen, a vortex particle method, which inherently allows treatment also of shearing effects and viscous diffusion. Treatment of blade loading is facilitated with the use of a lifting-line model. Details of correct specification of distributed and shed vortical elements in the blade wake are provided. Reduction of the computation cost has been achieved by implementing the model within a multilevel framework. In addition the model has been highly parallelised, so that relatively quick simulations at high fidelity can be achieved on the order of seconds. The ability of the model to produce results of comparable accuracy to CFD is demonstrated by comparison to the MEXICO test rotor.