Modal Analysis of the Wake Shed Behind a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine with Flexible Blades

Abstract: The proper orthogonal decomposition has been applied on a full-scale horizontal-axis wind turbine to shed light on the wake characteristics behind the wind turbine. In reality, the blade tip experiences high deflections even at the rated conditions which definitely alter the wake flow field, and in the case of a wind farm, may complicate the inlet conditions of the downstream wind turbine. The turbine under consideration is the full-scale model of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory 5MW onshore wind turbine which is accompanied by several simulation complexities including turbulence, mesh motion and fluid-structure interaction. Results indicated an almost similar modal behaviour for the rigid and flexible turbines at the wake region. In addition, more flow structures in terms of local vortices and fluctuating velocity fields take place at the far wake region. The flow structures due to the wake shed from the tower tend to move towards the center and merge with that of the nacelle leading to an integral vortical structure 2.5 diameter away from the rotor. Also, it is concluded that the exclusion of the tower leads to missing a major part of the wake structures, especially at far-wake positions.