For wind turbine manufacturers, it is important to be able to describe the wind conditions on the rotor blade as accurately as possible, for example to estimate the load on components. Wind farm operators also need to know during the planning stage what wind conditions are to be expected, for example in order to be able to forecast electrical output or noise development.
Using a new statistical model, researchers at the University of Oldenburg have succeeded in reproducing turbulent fluctuations in the wind much more realistically than was previously possible. In addition, the team from the Institute of Physics and the Center for Wind Energy Research ForWind led by Dr. Jan Friedrich developed a method to calculate complete, realistic wind fields from data from a few measurement points using the model, which also depicts strong turbulence and gusts.
With their new model, Friedrich and his Oldenburg colleagues have now succeeded in producing three-dimensional, realistic wind fields, including turbulence, with relatively little computational effort. The statistical properties of the wind field calculated from this can be adjusted by the team as desired so that the strength and frequency of turbulence at the respective location correspond to reality.
The method used to reconstruct complete fields of physical measurands from a limited set of data has broad applicability, according to the team. For example, it could be used to model the concentration of pollutants or the temperature distribution in an urban environment from data from a few measurement points at high resolution.
The work was partly funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection under the EMUwind and PASTA projects.
University of Oldenburg press release: https://www.presse.uni-oldenburg.de/mit/2022/209.html
