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Investigating the performance of double-rotor wind turbine arrangement in large wind farms using the LES method

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Abstract

The use of wind energy, the area of wind farms, and the length of wind turbine blades continuously increase with the increase in energy demand. This study aims to simulate large wind farms in the atmospheric boundary layer with different double-rotor (DR) wind turbine arrangements using large eddy simulation. The effect of four DR wind turbine arrangements on the efficiency of a large wind farm was investigated in this study. All simulations were performed using the OpenFOAM solver. The performance of different turbine arrangements was investigated based on the mean velocity, the extent of the wake region, mean kinetic energy, and turbine power. Results showed that the arrangement of DR turbines with transverse spacing produces higher power than other layouts. Moreover, DR layouts produce the same power as single-rotor layouts with a short blade length. This scenario is important from an economic point of view.

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Abbreviations

A :

Surface area of the wind turbine rotor (m2)

a :

Axial induction factor

C T :

Thrust coefficient

C P :

Power coefficient

D :

Single-rotor turbine diameter (m)

d :

Double-rotor turbine diameter (m)

Ē :

Mean kinetic energy (m2 s−2)

f j :

Drag force of wind turbines (m s−2)

H :

Height of ABL (m)

h :

Tip rotor height (m)

\({\tilde p^ * }\) :

Filtered modified pressure (Pa)

SY :

Transverse distance between rotors (m)

SZ :

Height distance between rotors (m)

ū :

Mean velocity (m s−1)

ũ :

Filtered velocity (m s−1)

U ∞ :

Upstream undisturbed (m s−1)

U d :

Velocity at the rotor disk (m s−1)

u τ :

Friction velocity (m s−1)

u+ :

Normalized mean velocity

z 0 :

Ground roughness (m)

z h :

Wind turbine hub height (m)

δ :

Height of the ABL (m)

τ :

Turbulent shear stress (Pa)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aerospace Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Vahid Mazidi Sharafabadi & Mani Fathali

Authors
  1. Vahid Mazidi Sharafabadi
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  2. Mani Fathali
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mani Fathali.

Additional information

Vahid Mazidi Sharafabadi received his master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Sharif University of Technology (SUT), Tehran, Iran, in 2014. He is currently working toward a Ph.D. degree at K. N. Toosi University of Technology. His research interests include large eddy simulation, wind farm simulation, computational fluid mechanics, and wind turbine simulation.

Mani Fathali received his Ph.D. degree from the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 2007. Ever since, he has been a faculty member at the Mechanical Engineering Department at K. N. Toosi University of Technology. His research interests include turbulent flow, computational fluid mechanics, large eddy simulation, and wind farm simulation.

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Sharafabadi, V.M., Fathali, M. Investigating the performance of double-rotor wind turbine arrangement in large wind farms using the LES method. J Mech Sci Technol 38, 711–720 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-024-0121-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-024-0121-1

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