A Simulation Model for Single and Multirotor Wind Turbine Performance
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by The International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers. Increasing international interest in wind energy research has resulted in the development of many different software codes for the various phases of wind energy system design. The strategy discussed herein provides an approach to obtain initial comparative performance estimates for candidate systems. The systems selected can then be further investigated by using a variety of user-selected software options to perform detailed design analyses of these complex systems. This research study presents a dimensionless field framework for the initial investigation of single-rotor or multirotor wind turbine configurations, before more detailed simulations. The approach presented involves a two-step process that first creates files containing dimensionless coefficients associated with the wind turbine characteristics and then uses them to investigate a variety of wind turbine configurations. Data sets for the specific problem are developed utilizing a recently developed tool for solving the nonlinear equations developed from the blade element momentum formulation. Comparisons of the modeling approach predictions with the performance of several real-world wind turbines are used to illustrate the methodologies flexibility. Additional examples are presented that illustrate the distribution of forces across single or multiple rotor planes. Consequently, models of multiple turbines on a single tower or a wind farm row consisting of identical or different wind turbine configurations can be efficiently investigated.
