A new RANS-based added turbulence intensity model for wind-farm flow modelling.

Abstract

This work aims to alleviate the memory requirements of the recent wake engineering model described in Criado Risco et al. [1]. The original model relies on a RANS-based look-up table of three-dimensional velocity deficit and added turbulence intensity fields computed for a stand-alone turbine under a wide variety of conditions. The objective is to develop an alternative to the model of Criado Risco et al. [1], particularly in terms of added turbulence intensity, for which little research has been carried out to date. To achieve this, a one-dimensional analytical expression is fitted to the look-up table and generalized to higher dimensions. The turbulence intensity model is then coupled to a velocity deficit model and implemented in PyWake, an open-source wake engineering software. Overall, the new turbulence intensity model is found to provide a reliable description of the RANS look-up table data while reducing by half the memory requirements of the original model. This conclusion is extended to multiple wake situations, for which this work also establishes a direct link between the adequate superposition method and the definition chosen to describe the added turbulence intensity in the wake.