Investigating the Effect of Separation of Row Aligned Wind Turbines on Power Production

Abstract

This thesis looks at developing and analyzing a model to parameterise the effect of laterally placing two wind turbines next to one another in the atmospheric boundary layer. First, an assessment of the current modelling methods of wind turbines is performed. Actuator disk theory is selected as an appropriate model and then a comparison of turbulence models is carried out on the actuator disk. The RANS k-$\epsilon$ method is selected as a result of this analysis. Finally, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to simulate two laterally spaced turbines and parameterize the effects of varying the spacing of the turbines in the atmospheric boundary layer. The two main constraints that were considered were accuracy of the solution and a limited amount of computing power.