A Parallel CFD Model for Wind Farms

We present a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling strategy for onshore wind farms aimed at predicting and opti- mizing the production of farms using a CFD model that includes meteorological data assimilation, complex terrain and wind turbine effects. The model involves the solution of the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations together with a k-ɛ turbulence model specially designed for the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL). The model involves automatic meshing and generation of boundary conditions with atmospheric boundary layer shape for the entering wind flow. As the integration of the model up to the ground surface is still not viable for complex terrains, a specific law of the wall including roughness effects is implemented. The wake effects and the aerodynamic behavior of the wind turbines are described using the actuator disk model, upon which a volumetric force is included in the momentum equations. The placement of the wind turbines and a mesh refinement for the near wakes is done by means of a Chimera method. The model is implemented in Alya, a High Performance Computing (HPC) multi physics parallel solver based on finite elements and developed at Barcelona Supercomputing Center.The research of G. Houzeaux is being partly done under a I3 contract with the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Inovación. The work of B. Eguzkitza is financed by a scholarship from the Fundación IBERDROLA supporting the project ”Optimization of wind farms using computational fluid dynamics”.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Diurnal cycle RANS simulations applied to wind resource assessment

Microscale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models can be used for wind resource assessment on complex terrains. These models generally assume neutral atmospheric stratification, an assumption that can lead to inaccurate modeling results and to large uncertainties at certain sites. We propose a methodology for wind resource evaluation based on unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier‐Stokes (URANS) simulations of diurnal cycles including the effect of thermal stratification. Time‐dependent boundary conditions are generated by a 1D precursor to drive 3D diurnal cycle simulations for a given geostrophic wind direction sector. Time instants of the cycle representative of four thermal stability regimes are sampled within diurnal cycle simulations and combined with masts time series to obtain the wind power density (WPD). The methodology has been validated on a complex site instrumented with seven met masts. The WPD spatial distribution is in good agreement with observations with the mean absolute error improving 17.1% with respect to the neutral stratification assumption.This work has been partially supported by the three EU H2020 projects, New European Wind Atlas ERA‐NET PLUS (NEWA, FP7‐ENERGY.2013.10.1.2, European Commission's grant agreement 618122), High Performance Computing for Energy (HPC4E, grant agreement 689772), and the Energy oriented Centre of Excellence (EoCoE, grant agreement 676629), and the SEDAR (“Simulación eólica de alta resolución”) project. Jordi Barcons is grateful to a PhD fellowship from the Industrial Doctorates Plan of the Government of Catalonia (Ref. eco/2497/2013). We also thank Iberdrola Renovables Energa S.A. and Impulsora Latinoamericana de Energa Renovables S.A. for providing the access to Puebla met masts data for validation and to Luis Prieto and Daniel Paredes for their help. We also thank the reviewers for their productive comments and observations.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Mesh generation, sizing and convergence for onshore and offshore wind farm Atmospheric Boundary Layer flow simulation with actuator discs

A new mesh generation process for wind farm modeling is presented together with a mesh convergence and sizing analysis for wind farm flow simulations. The generated meshes are tailored to simulate Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) flows on complex terrains modeling the wind turbines as actuator discs. The wind farm mesher is fully automatic and, given the topography and the turbine characteristics (location, diameter and hub height), it generates a hybrid mesh conformal with the actuator discs and refined upwind and downstream. Moreover, it presents smooth element size transitions across scales and avoids extending high-resolution areas to all the domain. We take advantage of our automatic and robust mesher to study the mesh convergence of our RANS solver with linear elements, obtaining quadratic mesh convergence for a quantity of interest in all the tested cases. In addition, we quantify the mesh resolution at the terrain surface and at the actuator discs required to achieve a given numerical error in simulations in onshore and offshore frameworks. Finally, we present the generated meshes and the simulation results for an offshore and an onshore wind farm. We analyze in detail one particular wind direction for both cases, and for the onshore wind farm we use our automatic framework to estimate the yearly production of energy and measuring the error against the actual produced one.This work has been partially funded by the EU H2020Energy oriented Center of Excellence (EoCoE) for computer applications, the New European Wind Atlas (NEWA) and the High Performance Computing for Energy (HPC4E) projects. We thank Iberdrola Renovables for their collaboration and for providing wind farm data to validate the developed techniques.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Large-eddy simulations of the vortex-induced vibration of a low mass ratio two-degree-of-freedom circular cylinder at subcritical Reynolds numbers

The vortex induced vibration phenomenon of a low mass ratio () two-degree-of-freedom circular cylinder at subcritical Reynolds numbers ( 5300, 11,000) has been investigated by means of large-eddy simulations. A low-dissipative spatial and time discretisation finite element schemes have been implemented and combined with the Wall-Adapting Local-Eddy viscosity (WALE) subgrid-scale model to solve the filtered incompressible flow equations. Several values of the reduced velocity in the range 3 ⩽ U* ⩽ 12 have been considered. The numerical results are extensively compared with available experimental and numerical data. Particular interest has been placed in the region of maximum cross-flow amplitudes, the super-upper branch, where previous high-fidelity numerical simulations have underestimated the peak amplitudes compared with experimental results. The transition between the super-upper and lower branches is also shown and described. The numerical simulations successfully reproduce the three-branch response maximum oscillation amplitudes and associated vortex formation modes. The 2T vortex formation mode, i.e. two triplets of vortices per oscillation period, has been observed to occur in the super-upper branch, for the three different values of the Reynolds number investigated. These results contradict the claim made in previous works [27] that the vortex formation mode in the super-upper branch is Reynolds number dependent. Beats are observed to appear prior the transition from the super-upper to the lower branch. It is argued that they may be related with the coherence and strength of the third vortex shed at the shoulder of the cylinder each half-cycle, which is finally suppressed in the transition to the lower branch.We acknowledge Red Española de Surpercomputación (RES) for awarding us access to the MareNostrum IV machine based in Barcelona, Spain (Ref. FI-2017-2-0016). J.C. Cajas acknowledges the financial support of the ‘Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT, México)’ grant numbers 231588/290790. D. Pastrana acknowledges support of the CONACyT-SENER graduate fellowship program to study abroad 278102/439162.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Domain decomposition methods for domain composition purpose: Chimera, overset, gluing and sliding mesh methods

Domain composition methods (DCM) consist in obtaining a solution to a problem, from the formulations of the same problem expressed on various subdomains. These methods have therefore the opposite objective of domain decomposition methods (DDM). Indeed, in contrast to DCM, these last techniques are usually applied to matching meshes as their purpose consists mainly in distributing the work in parallel environments. However, they are sometimes based on the same methodology as after decomposing, DDM have to recompose. As a consequence, in the literature, the term DDM has many times substituted DCM. DCM are powerful techniques that can be used for different purposes: to simplify the meshing of a complex geometry by decomposing it into different meshable pieces; to perform local refinement to adapt to local mesh requirements; to treat subdomains in relative motion (Chimera, sliding mesh); to solve multiphysics or multiscale problems, etc. The term DCM is generic and does not give any clue about how the fragmented solutions on the different subdomains are composed into a global one. In the literature, many methodologies have been proposed: they are mesh-based, equation-based, or algebraic-based. In mesh-based formulations, the coupling is achieved at the mesh level, before the governing equations are assembled into an algebraic system (mesh conforming, Shear-Slip Mesh Update, HERMESH). The equation-based counterpart recomposes the solution from the strong or weak formulation itself, and are implemented during the assembly of the algebraic system on the subdomain meshes. The different coupling techniques can be formulated for the strong formulation at the continuous level, for the weak formulation either at the continuous or at the discrete level (iteration-by-subdomains, mortar element, mesh free interpolation). Although the different methods usually lead to the same solutions at the continuous level, which usually coincide with the solution of the problem on the original domain, they have very different behaviors at the discrete level and can be implemented in many different ways. Eventually, algebraic- based formulations treat the composition of the solutions directly on the matrix and right-hand side of the individual subdomain algebraic systems. The present work introduces mesh-based, equation-based and algebraicbased DCM. It however focusses on algebraic-based domain composition methods, which have many advantages with respect to the others: they are relatively problem independent; their implicit implementation can be hidden in the iterative solver operations, which enables one to avoid intensive code rewriting; they can be implemented in a multi-code environment

Distance Optimisation for Linear Arrangement of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

For many centuries, researchers and scholars have been effortlessly trying to harvest natural energy resources, such as wind energy, solar energy and geothermal energy, due to the diminution of fossil fuels and their harmful effects on the surrounding environment. The wind has been shown to possess an incredible amount of power, which can be harnessed using wind turbines. Wind turbines transform the kinetic energy available in the free stream wind into mechanical energy by a rotor, from which power can be generated. Wind turbines can be broadly classified into two main categories, depending on the orientation of their axis of rotation; Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT) and Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWT). VAWTs are more suitable for the urban environment due to their low start-up torque. Extensive research has been carried out in improving the design and performance of a VAWT. However, a number of key issues have been highlighted after conducting an extensive literature; these key issues form the scope of this research. The current study focuses on optimising the distance between VAWT’s placed side by side linearly, by analysing the flow around a single VAWT using advanced numerical modelling tools. This study is carried out by analysing the wake region formed by the flow field under various free stream wind velocities. Furthermore, maximum wake region will be identified to measure the maximum distance the free stream wind velocity can occupy in the VAWT vicinity. Finally, a novel mathematical model that predicts the optimal distance required to place a side by side VAWT under various flow conditions will be developed. It is expected that this study will be able to optimise the spacing between VAWTs in a wind farm