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ID Validation of an Actuator Disc Model

166 P.-E. Réthoré, N. N. Sørensen, F. Zahle
Risø DTU, National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark - pire@risoe.dtu.dk

Abstract Validation with a Full rotor computation

In order to model wind turbine wake, a general flexible method to redistribute blade
forces in a computational domain has been implemented in the flow solver EllipSys
[1,2]. The method [3] can take any kind of shape discretization, determine the
intersectional elements with the computational grid and use these elements to
redistribute proportionally the forces.
The special case of the actuator disc is successfully validated with an analytical
solution for heavily loaded turbines and with a full rotor computation in CFD.
Method
The model is based on three levels of discretization. The actual shape is defined
by a grid with 3D coordinates. The second discretization is the computational grid.
The third discretization is the intersection between the shape grid and the
computational grid.
A recursive algorithm detects the cells that have intersections between the first two
meshes and defines the intersectional polygons. First the shape cell plane cutting
the domain cell is found. Then the intersectional points between the intersectional
plane and the shape cell are derived and assemble together to form the
intersectional polygons. This process is illustrated in the figure below.
The actuator disc is compared to a full rotor computation. The complete geometry
of the rotor and nacelle of a Nordtank 500 kW wind turbine is simulated up to a
steady state solution [5] using EllipSys and the k-ω SST turbulence model. The
blade forces are extracted from the skin friction. They are then smeared over a
disc and redistributed in the new domain using the actuator shape method
described previously.
The two simulations are carried out using the same inflow condition and the same
turbulence model, but on two different types of meshes. In order to determine the
minimum number of cells necessary to obtain an accurate development of the AD
wake, several mesh size are tested. The plot below shows the comparison of the
full rotor with two actuator disc simulation with 10 and 20 cells per rotor diameter
(cell/D) at 3 rotor diameters downstream of the wind turbine.

Intersectional Intersectional Colour:

plane polygon Shape cell
Shape cell area

Intersectional Colour:
points Intersectional
polygon area
Domain cell

The intersectional polygons are used during the simulation to proportionally

redistribute the shape forces inside the computational domain.
This independent discretization of the shape has the advantage to have the shape Actuator Disc vs Full rotor at z/D=3.0
grid and the computational mesh independently defined and still to preserve the
Radial velocity Ur/U∞[-]
Axial velocity Uz/U∞[-]

correct distribution of the forces even when the meshes are coarse.

Validation with an analytical solution Full rotor

AD 10 cells/D
Conway’s analytical solution for heavily loaded turbines [4] is compared with the AD 20 cells/D
actuator shape method. Here, the shape discretization is a polar mesh
representing an actuator disc (AD). We implemented the simplest solution of
Radial distance from center r/D [-] Radial distance from center r/D [-]
Conway in Matlab (parametric wake distribution with CT=0.4484) and used the
same force distribution and inflow parameters in EllipSys’s AD. The figure below
compares the two methods at different axial positions. 10 cell/D seems to be enough to obtain a good agreement of the wake shape in
both the axial and the radial velocity.

Actuator Disc vs Conway Conclusions

Conway • The actuator shape method, in its actuator disc formulation, is an affordable
Radial velocity Ur/U∞[-]
Axial velocity Uz/U∞[-]

Ellipsys method to model wind turbine wakes.

• With the correct force distribution the actuator disc model is in close agreement
z/D=-0.5 with both analytical solutions and full rotor computations.
z/D=0
• Only 10 cells per rotor diameter are necessary to obtain a well resolved wake
z/D=0.5
shape.
z/D=2.5
• Wind farm wake computations in CFD is numerically possible, if one has a
Radial distance from center r/D [-] Radial distance from center r/D [-]
correct way to estimate the wind turbine blade forces and to model the interaction
between the atmospheric turbulence and the wake induced turbulence.
The two methods are in very close agreement for both the axial and radial velocity.
In particular, both methods predict a similar wake expansion. [1] J.A. Michelsen, Basis 3D, TecRep DTU, 1992 [4] J.T. Conway, J. Fluid Mech., 1995 & 1998
[2] N.N. Sørensen, PhD thesis, DTU, 1994 [5] F. Zahle and N.N. Sørensen, EWEC 2009
[3] P.-E. Réthoré, PhD thesis, AAU / Risø DTU, 2009

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