Modeling onshore wind farms with heterogeneous hub heights in FAST.Farm using TurbSim inflow

Wind & Water Wind Farm Modeling
1

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on the aeroelastic simulation of a wind farm using FAST.Farm, and I would appreciate some guidance regarding inflow modeling under complex terrain conditions.

In our case, the turbines are installed on uneven terrain, with significant variations in elevation (each turbine is located on a different hill). As a consequence, hub heights relative to a common reference level differ notably across the farm.

Due to resource constraints, we do not have access to high-fidelity LES CFD inflow data. Instead, we are relying on TurbSim to generate turbulent inflow fields.

My question is the following:

  • Are there recommended or reasonably accurate approaches to represent this type of configuration in FAST.Farm using TurbSim-generated inflow?

  • In particular, how can one best account for the different effective inflow conditions associated with varying turbine elevations (e.g., shear, turbulence characteristics, coherence) when using a single or multiple TurbSim boxes?

  • Are there known best practices or limitations for this type of setup when LES is not available?

Any insights, references, or practical recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Best regards,

2

Dear @Daniel.Mulas,

All of our experience at NLR using FAST.Farm with terrain effects are using ambient wind inflow from an LES-generated precursor. With LES-generated inflow, you can have flow speed-ups over hills, you can mark terrain boundaries through the VTK data structure, etc. which is not possible with TurbSim-generated inflow.

Best regards,

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