Simulating the wake flow effect of wind turbines on velocity and turbulence using particle random walk method

This paper presents a novel way of simulating the effect of velocity decay and turbulence of wind turbine's wake flow. By decoupling the solving of wake flow from that of the velocity field, the proposed model treats the wake flow intensity as a kind of convective and diffusive virtual Matter. The particle random walk method is utilized to simulate the motion of the virtual matter. Comparing to the existing linear model for turbine wake flow, the proposed model can predict the distributions of velocity decay and turbulence of wake flow in a non-uniform flow field above complex terrain. Experimental data from wind tunnel and real wind farm is used to validate the model, demonstrating its effectiveness on estimating the velocity decay and the turbulence intensity, and additionally, the power yield of a wind farm. The model proposed in this paper can be integrated into algorithms for numerical assessment and micro-siting optimization of wind farms on complex terrains. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.