Summary

Modelling the wind field in complex terrain i s very difficult for the strong influences of local orography. Recently CFD models that are able to solve the Navier-
Stokes equation were applied with good results and thei r use is going to become wider. However CFD simulations need a l arge number of parameter to be
defined to set-up the boundary and initial conditions. The meanings and the way to manage all this parameters are still under investigation through
experimental data collection and tests.

One fundamental step is the choice of the inlet and outlet boundary
conditions; usually the wind field calculations are performed with
different wind di rection using the same calculation domain.
A CFD simulation of the natural wind ventilation of a squared domain i n
complex terrain is usually performed making several runs of the solver in
order to cover all the possible directions of the wind vector. A good
ratio between simulation time and accuracy is to divide 360 into 12
sectors of 30 each. Working on a rectangular domain, inlet and outlet
condition will be different for orthogonal and non orthogonal directions.
The simulation of wind blowing from North can be compared to the flux
of a fl uid i nto a squared section pipe, where the upper and the
boundary boarder are considered as friction-less walls.
A non orthogonal wind vector doesnt find on his path such a pipe and
the boundary conditions to adopt are different. Two inlets and two
outlet and the decomposition of the wind vector is necessary.

In present work a method to use only one way to simulate the wind field was elaborated and put in operation. Such method use only orthogonal simulations
rotating the domain to simulate non-orthogonal situations. The results were compared with those from the "traditional method". To run the new method was
necessary to develop three Matlab programs: 1)DTM Rotation - 2)Wind Rose Rotation - 3)Objects Rotation; 3)De-Rotation and Sum of Results.


















Conclusions

What we can notice from the analysis of the results is a different behaviour of the code
between the two way of simulation: modelling a skewed flow using two inlet or using one
inlet rotating the DTM produces in some cases different results. The analysis of the rotor
energy content for a turbine operating inside the domain (complex terrain envi ronment)
showed a different sensitiveness of the two method to the local orography.
Runni ng the two methods on a test case a gap of about 6% on the energy production
estimation was discovered; at the same time also the distribution of the wind module and
the shape of the wind profiles are different.
The convergence of the calculation is similar but the wind component on the main
direction is less stable on orthogonal models.
The results demonstrate that a deep analysis on the settings of boundary conditions is
recommended in order to improve the numerical simulations.



WIND SIMULATION ON COMPLEX TERRAINS:
ABOUT THE DEPENDENCIES ON INLET FLOW
ORTHOGONALITY

F.Castellani, A. Vignaroli, A.R. Gravdahl
UNIVERSITY OF PERUGIA
Department of
Industrial Engineering

castellani@unipg.it




VECTOR AS

info@windsim.com


(a) (b)

Average wind speed distribution - conventional model (a) - rotated model (b)

Origin
Model
Rotated
Model - 0
Rotated
Model - 30
Rotated
Model - 60
Results - 0
Results - 30
Results - 60
Adding
Results
Matlab
Program1
WindSime Matlab
Programs 2 & 3
Matlab
Program 4
Result
Comparisons

1 x 12
3 x 4

CONVENTIONAL MODEL
0.82
0.84
0.86
0.88
0.9
0.92
0.94
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330

ROTATED MODEL
0.8
0.85
0.9
0.95
0
30
60
90
120
150 210
240
270
300
330

Rotor energy content distribution

Wind profile with a speed of 10 m/s on the top of
the boundary
-40
10
60
110
160
210
260
310
360
0 5 10 15 20
speed (m/s)
h

(
m
/
s
)
conventional
model
orthogonal model

Wind profile with a speed of 5 m/s on the top of the
boundary
-40
10
60
110
160
210
260
310
360
0 2 4 6 8
speed (m/s)
h

(
m
/
s
)
conventional
model
orthogonal model