Rotor-wake interactions in a wind turbine row: a multi-physics investigation with large eddy simulation

Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is growing in importance to support the development, validation and tuning of efficient and reliable engineering models. Such models are essential for the wind energy industry to predict the performance of wind turbines, especially when rotor-wake interactions are involved. In this paper, we present high-fidelity numerical results obtained with a new aero-servo-elastic solver relying on LES and the actuator line method. Two sub-configurations of the Westermost Rough wind farm are investigated: an isolated wind turbine and a seven-turbine row. For validation purposes, field data are compared to time-averaged numerical results for the rotation speed, blade pitch angle, output power, and blade loads. A very good agreement between the results and field data is obtained for the isolated turbine. For the seven-turbine row, some discrepancies are observed. Those can primarily be explained by the inherent difficulty of translating both the actual wind conditions and the influence of the neighboring row into boundary conditions.