Application of lattice Boltzmann method in wind turbine wake study considering the influence of atmospheric stability
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Wind energy is one of the fast growing renewable energy that have high computation demand due to large wind farm development. Lattice Boltzmann method(LBM) combined with large eddy simulation(LES) provide possible solution to balance the detail aerodynamic analysis and computation demand. However, the application of LBM-LES frame in this area is remain limited. The purpose of this paper is to sim- ulate the influence of thermal stratification of atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) on wind turbine wake development under LBM-LES frame. The wind turbines are parameterized as actuator line models and the ground momentum and thermal flux of ABL are modeled with the Monin-Obukhov similarity the- ory. First a single wind turbine’s wake characteristics (including mean velocity and turbulence intensity) under stable, neutral and unstable atmosphere boundary layers (ABL) are analyzed and validated against Navier-Stokes-based large eddy simulation. Then, the wake profiles behind each row of wind turbines in a wind farm under neutral atmosphere are compared to wind tunnel measurement results. In the re- sults, the main differences in the velocity and turbulence profiles come from the subgrid-scale model and inflow turbulence generation method used. Overall, our model give quite good predictions, the cur- rent LBM-LES framework in wind engineering study is validated and it has the potential to significantly increase computation efficiency across a wide range of wind energy research domains.
