Synthetic turbulence modelling for offshore wind farm engineering models using coherence aggregation

Abstract Turbulent wind fields are known to be a major driver for structural loads and power fluctuations on offshore wind turbines. At the single‐turbine scale, there exist well‐established design standards based on wind spectra and coherence functions calibrated from years of measurements, which a...

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Main Author: Valentin Chabaud
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2024-02-01
Series:Wind Energy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1002/we.2875
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author Valentin Chabaud
author_facet Valentin Chabaud
author_sort Valentin Chabaud
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Turbulent wind fields are known to be a major driver for structural loads and power fluctuations on offshore wind turbines. At the single‐turbine scale, there exist well‐established design standards based on wind spectra and coherence functions calibrated from years of measurements, which are used to generate multiple 10‐min wind field realisations known as synthetic turbulence boxes, themselves used as input to turbine‐scale aero‐hydro‐servo elastic codes. These methods are however not directly applicable at farm scale. When analysing the dynamics of large offshore wind farms, measurements reveal the importance of large, low‐frequency turbulent vortices for power fluctuations and hence for wind farm control and grid integration. Also, farm‐scale wind fields are needed as input to farm‐scale aero‐servo‐elastic codes for the modelling of wake dynamics, affecting structural loads. These new concerns motivate an upgrade in the original turbine‐scale wind field representation: (1) spectral models need to be based on farm‐scale measurements, (2) the frozen‐turbulence assumption merging temporal and along‐wind coherence must be lifted, (3) simplifications are needed to reduce the number of degrees of freedom as the domain becomes excessively large. This paper suggests models and algorithms for aggregated farm‐wide corrrelated synthetic turbulence generation—lumping the wind field into space‐averaged quantities—adapted to the aero‐hydro‐servo elastic modelling of large offshore wind farms. Starting from the work of Sørensen et al. in the early 2000s for grid integration purposes, methods for structural load modelling (through wake meandering and high‐resolution wind field reconstruction) are introduced. Implementation and efficiency matters involving mathematical subtleties are then presented. Finally, numerical experiments are carried out to (1) verify the approach and implementation against a state‐of‐the‐art point‐based—as opposite to aggregated—synthetic turbulence generation code and (2) illustrate the benefit of turbulence aggregation for the modelling of large offshore wind farms.
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spelling doaj.art-46319fd6a40242759b6366215661636c2024-01-23T06:51:35ZengWileyWind Energy1095-42441099-18242024-02-0127211113010.1002/we.2875Synthetic turbulence modelling for offshore wind farm engineering models using coherence aggregationValentin Chabaud0SINTEF Energy Research Trondheim NorwayAbstract Turbulent wind fields are known to be a major driver for structural loads and power fluctuations on offshore wind turbines. At the single‐turbine scale, there exist well‐established design standards based on wind spectra and coherence functions calibrated from years of measurements, which are used to generate multiple 10‐min wind field realisations known as synthetic turbulence boxes, themselves used as input to turbine‐scale aero‐hydro‐servo elastic codes. These methods are however not directly applicable at farm scale. When analysing the dynamics of large offshore wind farms, measurements reveal the importance of large, low‐frequency turbulent vortices for power fluctuations and hence for wind farm control and grid integration. Also, farm‐scale wind fields are needed as input to farm‐scale aero‐servo‐elastic codes for the modelling of wake dynamics, affecting structural loads. These new concerns motivate an upgrade in the original turbine‐scale wind field representation: (1) spectral models need to be based on farm‐scale measurements, (2) the frozen‐turbulence assumption merging temporal and along‐wind coherence must be lifted, (3) simplifications are needed to reduce the number of degrees of freedom as the domain becomes excessively large. This paper suggests models and algorithms for aggregated farm‐wide corrrelated synthetic turbulence generation—lumping the wind field into space‐averaged quantities—adapted to the aero‐hydro‐servo elastic modelling of large offshore wind farms. Starting from the work of Sørensen et al. in the early 2000s for grid integration purposes, methods for structural load modelling (through wake meandering and high‐resolution wind field reconstruction) are introduced. Implementation and efficiency matters involving mathematical subtleties are then presented. Finally, numerical experiments are carried out to (1) verify the approach and implementation against a state‐of‐the‐art point‐based—as opposite to aggregated—synthetic turbulence generation code and (2) illustrate the benefit of turbulence aggregation for the modelling of large offshore wind farms.https://doi.org/10.1002/we.2875aggregated spectral modellingsynthetic turbulencewind farm simulations
spellingShingle Valentin Chabaud
Synthetic turbulence modelling for offshore wind farm engineering models using coherence aggregation
Wind Energy
aggregated spectral modelling
synthetic turbulence
wind farm simulations
title Synthetic turbulence modelling for offshore wind farm engineering models using coherence aggregation
title_full Synthetic turbulence modelling for offshore wind farm engineering models using coherence aggregation
title_fullStr Synthetic turbulence modelling for offshore wind farm engineering models using coherence aggregation
title_full_unstemmed Synthetic turbulence modelling for offshore wind farm engineering models using coherence aggregation
title_short Synthetic turbulence modelling for offshore wind farm engineering models using coherence aggregation
title_sort synthetic turbulence modelling for offshore wind farm engineering models using coherence aggregation
topic aggregated spectral modelling
synthetic turbulence
wind farm simulations
url https://doi.org/10.1002/we.2875
work_keys_str_mv AT valentinchabaud syntheticturbulencemodellingforoffshorewindfarmengineeringmodelsusingcoherenceaggregation