Wind turbines operate in the atmospheric boundary layer, where they are exposed to the turbulent atmospheric flows. As the response time of wind turbine is typically in the range of seconds, they are affected by the small scale intermittent properties of the turbulent wind. Consequently, basic features which are known for small-scale homogeneous isotropic turbulence, and in particular the well-known intermittency problem, have an important impact on the wind energy conversion process. We report on basic research results concerning the small-scale intermittent properties of atmospheric flows and their impact on the wind energy conversion process. The analysis of wind data shows strongly intermittent statistics of wind fluctuations. To achieve numerical modeling a data-driven superposition model is proposed. For the experimental reproduction and adjustment of intermittent flows a so-called active grid setup is presented. Its ability is shown to generate reproducible properties of atmospheric flows on the smaller scales of the laboratory conditions of a wind tunnel. As an application example the response dynamics of different anemometer types are tested. To achieve a proper understanding of the impact of intermittent turbulent inflow properties on wind turbines we present methods of numerical and stochastic modeling, and compare the results to measurement data. As a summarizing result we find that atmospheric turbulence imposes its intermittent features on the complete wind energy conversion process. Intermittent turbulence features are not only present in atmospheric wind, but are also dominant in the loads on the turbine, i.e. rotor torque and thrust, and in the electrical power output signal. We conclude that profound knowledge of turbulent statistics and the application of suitable numerical as well as experimental methods are necessary to grasp these unique features (...)
Large eddy simulations and three-dimensional proper orthogonal decomposition were used to study the interaction between a large stationary and moving bluff body and a high Reynolds number stably-stratified turbulent boundary layer. An immersed boundary method is utilized to take into account the effect of the bluff body on the boundary layer flow and turbulent inflow conditions upstream of the bluff body are imposed by employing a concurrent precursor simulation method both because a pseudo-spectral method is utilized in the horizontal directions. The dominant POD mode type was observed to occ…
Wind-wave interaction involves wind forcing on wave surface and wave effects on the turbulent wind structures, which essentially influences the wind and wave loading on structures. Existing research on wind-wave interaction modeling ignores the inherent strong turbulences of wind. The present study aims to characterize the turbulent airflow over wave surfaces and wave dynamics under wind driving force. A high-fidelity two-phase model is developed to simulate highly turbulent wind-wave fields. Instead of using uniform wind, inherent wind turbulences are prescribed at the inlet boundary using th…
It is shown, using results of direct numerical simulations, laboratory experiments, measurements in the atmospheric boundary layer, satellite infrared radiances data, the planetary-scale surface-air and tropospheric data, that the temperature fluctuations in atmospheric free convection can be well described by the spatio-temporal distributed chaos approach based on the Bolgiano-Obukhov phenomenology. A possibility of analogous consideration of the atmospheric dynamics on other planets (Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) has been briefly discussed using the data obtained with the Phoenix lander and the …
A mechanism of formation of small-scale inhomogeneities in spatial distributions of aerosols and droplets associated with clustering instability in the atmospheric turbulent flow is discussed. The particle clustering is a consequence of a spontaneous breakdown of their homogeneous space distribution due to the clustering instability, and is caused by a combined effect of the particle inertia and a finite correlation time of the turbulent velocity field. In this paper a theoretical approach proposed in Phys. Rev. E 66, 036302 (2002) is further developed and applied to investigate the mechanisms…
A wind tunnel experiment is shown to examine the reproducibility of generated wind fields in the laboratory utilizing an active grid. A motion protocol of the grid, designed to mimic a measured atmospheric wind speed time series, is therefore repeated 50 times and the flow is measured by a 2D hotwire (x-wire) system. The acquired wind speed time series are analysed in two different ways to identify the reproducible time scales. A direct comparison using the cross covariance function combined with two filtering methods and a statistic approach using one and two point analysis. Like that the rep…
The intentional yaw misalignment of leading, upwind turbines in a wind farm, termed wake steering, has demonstrated potential as a collective control approach for wind farm power maximization. The optimal control strategy, and resulting effect of wake steering on wind farm power production, are in part dictated by the power degradation of the upwind yaw misaligned wind turbines. In the atmospheric boundary layer, the wind speed and direction may vary significantly over the wind turbine rotor area, depending on atmospheric conditions and stability, resulting in freestream turbine power producti…
A large-scale spanwise and wall-normal array of sonic anemometers in the atmospheric surface layer is used to acquire all three components of instantaneous fluctuating velocity as well as temperature in a range of stability conditions. These data permit investigation of the three-dimensional statistical structure of turbulence structures. The present work extends the view of a self-similar range of wall-attached turbulence structures to the atmospheric surface layer under unstable and near-neutral stability conditions, and includes the statistical structure in both the wall-normal and spanwise…
As a generalization of the mass-flux based classical stream-tube, the concept of momentum and energy transport tubes is discussed as a flow visualization tool. These transport tubes have the property, respectively, that no fluxes of momentum or energy exist over their respective tube mantles. As an example application using data from large-eddy simulation, such tubes are visualized for the mean-flow structure of turbulent flow in large wind farms, in fully developed wind-turbine-array boundary layers. The three-dimensional organization of energy transport tubes changes considerably when turbin…
We generate explicit height-dependent eddy viscosity coefficients in the Ekman layer from convex wind speed profiles. The solutions we obtain are parameterized in terms of the relative deflection angle between the wind directions at the top and bottom of the flow, as well as the geostrophic wind speed and a velocity scale we interpret as the transfer rate of horizontal momentum in the vertical direction. The solutions may be used to infer the thickness of the Ekman layer for a variety of deflection angles different from deflection angle of the classic Ekman spiral.
Turbulent fluxes in the atmospheric surface layer are key input for the prediction of weather, hydrology, and carbon dioxide concentration. In numerical modelling of turbulent fluxes, a -7/3 power-law scaling in turbulence cospectra is usually assumed at high wavenumbers. In eddy-covariance (EC) measurements of turbulent fluxes, an assumed shape of turbulence cospectra is typically required for high-frequency spectral corrections, typically assuming a -7/3 power law. The derivation of -7/3 power-law scaling is based primarily on dimensional analysis, and other cospectral scaling has also been …
The fluid dynamics video considers an array of two NREL 5-MW turbines separated by seven rotor diameters in a neutral atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). The neutral atmospheric boundary-layer flow data were obtained from a precursor ABL simulation using a Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) framework within OpenFOAM. The mean wind speed at hub height is 8m/s, and the surface roughness is 0.2m. The actuator line method (ALM) is used to model the wind turbine blades by means of body forces added to the momentum equation. The fluid dynamics video shows the root and tip vortices emanating from the blades f…
The paper analyzes the phenomenon of turbulent thermal diffusion in the Earth atmosphere, its relation to the turbulent diffusion and its potential impact on aerosol distribution. This phenomenon was predicted theoretically more than 10 years ago and detected recently in the laboratory experiments. This effect causes a non-diffusive flux of aerosols in the direction of the heat flux and results in formation of long-living aerosol layers in the vicinity of temperature inversions. We demonstrated that the theory of turbulent thermal diffusion explains the GOMOS aerosol observations near the trop…
The meridional component of the earth's rotation is often neglected in geophysical contexts. This is referred to as the `traditional approximation' and is justified by the typically small vertical velocity and aspect ratio of such problems. Ocean fronts are regions of strong horizontal buoyancy gradient and are associated with strong vertical transport of tracers and nutrients. Given these comparatively large vertical velocities, non-traditional rotation may play a role in governing frontal dynamics. Here the effects of non-traditional rotation on a front in turbulent thermal wind balance are …
While a theoretical limit has long been established for the performance of a single turbine, no corresponding upper bound exists for the power output from a large wind farm, making it difficult to evaluate the available potential for further performance gains. Here we build a model describing the essential features of a large array of turbines with arbitrary design and layout, by considering a fully-developed wind farm whose upper edge is bounded by a self-similar boundary layer. The exchanges between the wind farm, the overlaying boundary layer, and the outer flow are parameterized by means o…
According to field observations, the atmospheric boundary layer is usually unstably stratified before a dust and sandstorm, the particle-laden turbulent gravity current with an extremely high Reynolds number. In this paper, an inviscid model is built to study the mechanism governing the slumping phase of gravity current, and it is shown that the dimensionless current front speed, the Froude number, decreases when the current fluid or the ambient medium or both fluids are unstably stratified. In spite of the density interface mixing, the relation between the front speed and the front height des…
An extended analytical wake model and applications to yawed wind turbines in atmospheric boundary layers with different levels of stratification and veer
Low-level jets (LLJs) are the wind maxima in the lower regions of the atmosphere with a high wind energy potential. Here we use large-eddy simulations to study the effect of LLJ height on the flow dynamics in a wind farm with $10\times4$ turbines. We change the LLJ height and atmospheric thermal stratification by varying the surface cooling rate. We find that the first row power production is higher in the presence of a LLJ compared to a neutral reference case without LLJ. Besides, we show that the first row power production increases with decreasing LLJ height. Due to the higher turbulence in…
A quantitative understanding of the dominant mechanisms that govern the generation and decay of the counter-rotating vortex pair (CVP) produced by yawed wind turbines is needed to fully realize the potential of yawing for wind farm power maximization and regulation. Observations from large eddy simulations (LES) of yawed wind turbines in the turbulent atmospheric boundary layer and concepts from the airplane trailing vortex literature inform a model for the shed vorticity and circulation. The model is formed through analytical integration of simplified forms of the vorticity transport equation…
Wake redirection is a promising approach designed to mitigate turbine-wake interactions which have a negative impact on the performance and lifetime of wind farms. It has recently been found that substantial power gains can be obtained by tilting the rotors of spanwise-periodic wind-turbine arrays. Rotor tilt is associated to the generation of coherent streamwise vortices which deflect wakes towards the ground and, by exploiting the vertical wind shear, replace them with higher-momentum fluid (high-speed streaks). The objective of this work is to evaluate power gains that can be obtained by ti…
A generalized logarithmic law for high-order moments of passive scalars is proposed for turbulent boundary layers. This law is analogous to the generalized log law that has been proposed for high-order moments of the turbulent longitudinal velocity and is derived by combining the random sweeping decorrelation hypothesis with a spectral model informed by the attached eddy hypothesis. The proposed theory predicts that the high-order moments of passive scalar fluctuations within the inertial sublayer will vary logarithmically with wall-normal distance ($z$). The proposed theory is evaluated using…
At low Reynolds numbers, the wind flow in the wake of a single wind turbine is generally not turbulent. However, turbines in wind farms affect each other's wakes so that a turbulent flow can arise. In the present work, an analogue of this effect for the massless charge carrier flow around obstacles in graphene is outlined. We use a relativistic hydrodynamic simulation to analyze the flow in a sample containing impurities. Depending on the density of impurities in the sample, we indeed find evidence for potentially turbulent flow and discuss experimental consequences.
In this letter, we study the scaling properties of multi-year observed and atmospheric model-generated wind time series. We have found that the extended self-similarity holds for the observed series, and remarkably, the scaling exponents corresponding to the meoscale range closely match the well-accepted inertial-range turbulence values. However, the scaling results from the simulated time series are significantly different.
This study proposes a novel framework based on magnitude cumulant and surrogate analyses to reliably detect and estimate the intermittency coefficient from short-length coarse-resolution turbulent time series. Intermittency coefficients estimated from a large number of neutrally stratified atmospheric surface layer turbulent series from various field campaigns are shown to remarkably concur with well-known laboratory experimental results. In addition, surrogate-based hypothesis testing significantly reduces the likelihood of detecting a spurious non-zero intermittency coefficient from non-inte…
We present a numerical study of Rayleigh-Bénard convection disturbed by a longitudinal wind. Our results show that under the action of the wind, the vertical heat flux through the cell initially decreases, due to the mechanism of plumes-sweeping, and then increases again when turbulent forced convection dominates over the buoyancy. As a result, the Nusselt number is a non-monotonic function of the shear Reynolds number. We provide a simple model that captures with good accuracy all the dynamical regimes observed. We expect that our findings can lead the way to a more fundamental understanding …
A tentative scaling theory is presented of a tree swaying in a turbulent wind. It is argued that the turbulence of the air within the crown is in the inertial regime. An eddy causes a dynamic bending response of the branches according to a time criterion. The resulting expression for the penetration depth of the wind yields an exponent which appears to be consistent with that pertaining to the morphology of the tree branches. An energy criterion shows that the dynamics of the branches is basically passive. The possibility of hydrodynamic screening by the leaves is discussed.
We find actual evidence, relying upon vorticity time series taken in a high Reynolds number atmospheric experiment, that to a very good approximation the surface boundary layer flow may be described, in a statistical sense and under certain regimes, as an advected ensemble of homogeneous turbulent systems, characterized by a lognormal distribution of fluctuating intensities. Our analysis suggests that usual direct numerical simulations of homogeneous and isotropic turbulence, performed at moderate Reynolds numbers, may play an important role in the study of turbulent boundary layer flows, if s…
In this short review it is suggested that the relationship between third- and fourth-order moments of turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer depends on stability. This can explain some differences among datasets, and provides a key point for modelling improvement.
We have analyzed long-term wind speed time-series from five field sites up to a height of 300 m from the ground. Structure function-based scaling analysis has revealed that the scaling exponents in the mesoscale regime systematically depend on height. This anomalous behavior is likely caused by the buoyancy effects. In the framework of the extended self-similarity, the relative scaling exponents portray quasi-universal behavior.
We study the statistics of the horizontal component of atmospheric boundary layer wind speed. Motivated by its non-stationarity, we investigate which parameters remain constant or can be regarded as being piece-wise constant and explain how to estimate them. We will verify the picture of natural atmospheric boundary layer turbulence to be composed of successively occurring close to ideal turbulence with different parameters. The first focus is put on the fluctuation of wind speed around its mean behaviour. We describe a method estimating the proportionality factor between the standard deviatio…
Solar wind turbulence is dominated by Alfvénic fluctuations but the power spectral exponents somewhat surprisingly evolve toward the Kolmogorov value of -5/3, that of hydrodynamic turbulence. We show that at 1AU the turbulence decomposes linearly into two coexistent components perpendicular and parallel to the local average magnetic field. The first of these is consistent with propagating Alfvén wavepackets and shows the scaling expected of Alfvénic turbulence, namely Irosnikov- Kraichnan. The second shows Kolmogorov scaling which we also find in the number and magnetic energy density, and Poy…
Experimental results for passive tracer dispersion in the turbulent surface layer under convective conditions are presented. In this case, the dispersion of tracer particles is determined by the interplay of two mechanisms: buoyancy and advection. In the atmospheric surface layer under stable stratification the buoyancy mechanism dominates when the distance from the ground is greater than the Monin-Obukhov length, resulting in a different exponent in the scaling law of relative separation of lagrangian particles (deviation from the celebrated Richardson's law). This conclusion is supported by …
We present the construction of an original stochastic model for the instantaneous turbulent kinetic energy at a given point of a flow, and we validate estimator methods on this model with observational data examples. Motivated by the need for wind energy industry of acquiring relevant statistical information of air motion at a local place, we adopt the Lagrangian description of fluid flows to derive, from the $3$D+time equations of the physics, a $0$D+time-stochastic model for the time series of the instantaneous turbulent kinetic energy at a given position. Specifically, based on the Lagrangi…
It is shown that correlation function of the mean wind velocity in a turbulent thermal convection (Rayleigh number $Ra \sim 10^{11}$) exhibits exponential decay with a very long correlation time, while corresponding largest Lyapunov exponent is certainly positive. These results together with the reconstructed phase portrait indicate presence of a chaotic component in the examined mean wind. Telegraph approximation is also used to study relative contribution of the chaotic and stochastic components to the mean wind fluctuations and an equilibrium between these components has been studied. Since…
Smart strategies to navigate turbulent odor plumes reorienting to local wind
Tor Vergata University of Rome（罗马托尔维加塔大学）；INFN（意大利国家核物理研究所）；Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi, CNR（复杂系统研究所，国家研究委员会）；University of Genoa（热那亚大学）；Université Côte d’Azur（蔚蓝海岸大学）；Inria（法国国家数字与人工智能研究院）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）
Wind-blown sand, or 'saltation,' creates sand dunes, erodes geological features, and could be a significant source of dust aerosols on Mars. Moreover, the electrification of sand and dust in saltation, dust storms, and dust devils could produce electric discharges and affect atmospheric chemistry. We present the first calculations of electric fields in martian saltation, using a numerical model of saltation that includes sand electrification, plasma physics, and the adsorption of ions and electrons onto particulates. Our results indicate that electric discharges do not occur in martian saltati…
The simultaneous observations from a Doppler weather radar and an instrumented micrometeorological tower, offer an opportunity to dissect the effects of a gust front on the surface layer turbulence in a tropical convective boundary layer. We present a case study where a sudden drop in temperature was noted at heights within the surface layer during the passage of a gust front in the afternoon time. Consequently, this temperature drop created an interface which separated two different turbulent regimes. In one regime the turbulent temperature fluctuations were large and energetic, whereas in th…
It is shown that correlation function of the mean wind velocity generated by a turbulent thermal convection (Rayleigh number $Ra \sim 10^{11}$) exhibits exponential decay with a very long correlation time, while corresponding largest Lyapunov exponent is certainly positive. These results together with the reconstructed phase portrait indicate presence of chaotic component in the examined mean wind. Telegraph approximation is also used to study relative contribution of the chaotic and stochastic components to the mean wind fluctuations and an equilibrium between these components has been studie…
Accurate models of turbulent wind fields have become increasingly important in the atmospheric sciences, e.g., for the determination of spatiotemporal correlations in wind parks, the estimation of individual loads on turbine rotor and blades, or for the modeling of particle-turbulence interaction in atmospheric clouds or pollutant distributions in urban settings. Due to the prohibitive task of resolving the fields across a broad range of scales, one oftentimes has to resort to stochastic wind field models that fulfill specific, empirically observed, properties. Here, we present a new model for…
Atmospheric turbulent velocity fluctuations are known to increase wind turbine structural loading and accelerate wake recovery, but the impact of vortical coherent structures in the atmosphere on wind turbines has not yet been evaluated. The current study uses flow imaging with natural snowfall with a field of view spanning the inflow and near wake. Vortical coherent structures with diameters on the order of 1 m are identified and characterized in the flow approaching a 2.5 MW wind turbine in the region spanning the bottom blade tip elevation to hub height. Their impact on turbine structural l…
The present investigation provides the first field characterization of the influence of turbulent inflow on the blade structural response of a utility-scale wind turbine (2.5MW), using the unique facility available at the Eolos Wind Energy Research Station of the University of Minnesota. A representative one-hour dataset under a stable atmosphere is selected for the characterization, including the inflow turbulent data measured from the meteorological tower, high-resolution blade strain measurement at different circumferential and radiation positions along the blade, and the wind turbine opera…
The equations governing atmospheric flows are nonlinear. Consequently, the hierarchy of cumulant equations is not closed. But because atmospheric flows are inhomogeneous and anisotropic, the nonlinearity may manifest itself only weakly through interactions of mean fields with disturbances such as thermals or eddies. In such situations, truncations of the hierarchy of cumulant equations hold promise as a closure strategy. We review how truncations at second order can be used to model and elucidate the dynamics of atmospheric flows. Two examples are considered. First, we study the growth of a dr…
