On Interactions Between Wind Turbines and the Marine Boundary Layer

Most mesoscale models are developed with grid resolution in the range of kilometers. Therefore, they may require spatial averaging to analyze flow behavior over the domain of interest. In doing so, certain important features of sub-grid scales are lost. Moreover, spatial averaging on the governing equations results in additional terms known as dispersive fluxes. These fluxes are ignored in the analysis. The aim of this paper is to identify the significance of these fluxes for accurate assessment of flow fields related to wind farm applications. The research objectives are hence twofold: 1) to quantify the impact of wind turbines on MBL characteristics. 2) to account for the magnitude of dispersive fluxes arising from spatial averaging and make a comparison against the turbulent flux values. To conduct the numerical study the NREL 5MW reference wind turbine model is employed with a RANS approach using k-ε turbulence model. The results are presented concerning spatially averaged velocity, wake deficit behind the turbine, dispersive and turbulent fluxes.