Abstract:
To investigate the characteristics of wind turbine wake flow fields, a novel three-dimensional surrogate model for wind turbines is proposed by representing the rotor as a porous spherical medium. Taking an onshore wind farm in Henan Province, China, as the research subject, free-flow and wake data were collected using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) wind measurement system. A numerical simulation model was established with measured inflow wind conditions as boundary inputs, incorporating modified turbulence model parameters. Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations were conducted to analyze the horizontal and vertical distribution characteristics of wind turbine wakes. Results demonstrate that configuring the drag coefficient of the porous medium model effectively simulates the rotor's resistance effect on the flow field. Horizontally, wake velocity and turbulence intensity exhibit symmetric distributions, with a bimodal turbulence pattern observed in the near-wake region. Vertically, the wake displays asymmetric characteristics. At the hub height, the wake velocity decreases to 46% of the incoming flow at 2
D (
D being the rotor diameter) downstream and recovers to 75% at 6
D downstream, accompanied by an overall reduction in turbulence levels. The turbulence enhancement effect at the blade tip height gradually diminishes with downstream distance. Validation against field measurements shows that the root mean square errors of simulated wind speeds are within 10%, and turbulence intensity errors are mostly below 15%, confirming the accuracy of the proposed surrogate model in predicting wake velocity and turbulence intensity. This work provides a new engineering-oriented approach for wind turbine wake simulation.