Experimental and Numerical Analysis of a Seawall’s Effect on Wind Turbine Performance

• Published in: Energies (Basel) 2019-10, Vol.12 (20), p.3877
• Main Authors: Kim, Hyun-Goo, Jeon, Wan-Ho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alternative energy sources; Atmospheric boundary layer; Breakwaters; Coasts; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer applications; Computer simulation; Data acquisition; Electric power generation; Energy research; Experiments; Flow separation; Fluid dynamics; Fluid flow; gunsan wind farm; High tide; Hydrodynamics; Mitigation; Numerical analysis; Reynolds number; Rotors; Scale models; seawall; Separation; Simulation; speedup; Supervisory control and data acquisition; Turbine blades; Turbines; Turbulence; Turbulence intensity; Turbulence models; Turbulent flow; Wind effects; Wind engineering; Wind farms; Wind power; Wind profiles; Wind shear; wind shear mitigation; Wind speed; wind tunnel experiment; Wind tunnel testing; Wind tunnels
• ISSN: 1996-1073; 1996-1073
• DOI: 10.3390/en12203877

For the purposes of this study, a wind tunnel experiment and a numerical analysis during ebb and high tides were conducted to determine the positive and negative effects of wind flow influenced by a seawall structure on the performance of wind turbines installed along a coastal seawall. The comparison of the wind flow field between a wind tunnel experiment performed with a 1/100 scale model and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis confirmed that the MP k-turbulence model estimated flow separation on the leeside of the seawall the most accurately. The CFD analysis verified that wind speed-up occurred due to the virtual hill effect caused by the seawall’s windward slope and the recirculation zone of its rear face, which created a positive effect by mitigating wind shear while increasing the mean wind speed in the wind turbine’s rotor plane. In contrast, the turbulence effect of flow separation on the seawall’s leeside was limited to the area below the wind turbine rotor, and had no negative effect. The use of the CFD verified with the comparison with the wind tunnel experiment was extended to the full-scale seawall, and the results of the analysis based on the wind turbine Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) data of a wind farm confirmed that the seawall effect was equivalent to a 1.5% increase in power generation as a result of a mitigation of the wind profile.