Modeling Atmospheric Turbulence via Rapid Distortion Theory: Spectral Tensor of Velocity and Buoyancy

Abstract A spectral tensor model is presented for turbulent fluctuations of wind velocity components and temperature, assuming uniform vertical gradients in mean temperature and mean wind speed. The model is built upon rapid distortion theory (RDT) following studies by Mann and by Hanazaki and Hunt, using the eddy lifetime parameterization of Mann to make the model stationary. The buoyant spectral tensor model is driven via five parameters: the viscous dissipation rate ε, length scale of energy-containing eddies L, a turbulence anisotropy parameter , gradient Richardson number (Ri) representing the local atmospheric stability, and the rate of destruction of temperature variance . Model output includes velocity and temperature spectra and associated cospectra, including those of longitudinal and vertical temperature fluxes. The model also produces two-point statistics, such as coherences and phases of velocity components and temperature. The statistics of uniformly sheared and stratified turbulence from the model are compared with atmospheric observations taken from the Horizontal Array Turbulence Study (HATS) field program, and model results fit observed one-dimensional spectra quite well. For highly unstable stratification, however, the model has deficiencies at low wavenumbers that limit its prediction of longitudinal velocity component spectra at scales on the order of 0.6 km. The model predicts coherences well for horizontal separations but overestimates vertical coherence with increasing separation. Finally, it is shown that the RDT output can deviate from Monin–Obukhov similarity theory.</jats:p

Assessment of synthetic winds through spectralmodeling and validation using FAST

-In this paper, we analyse the simulated and measured wind data with respect to their spectral characteristics and their effect on wind turbine loads. The synthetic data is generated from a stochastic full-field turbulent wind simulator - TurbSim for neutral stability conditions. We first investigate a model for velocity spectra and, a coherence model, by comparing the model results with the measurements. In the second part we analyse the synthetic data via spectra and coherence for two cases; without and with adding coherent events. Finally, we compare wind turbine loads calculated by using FAST simulation of 5 MW reference wind turbine on the basis of simulated and measured data for the given mean wind speed