Fundamental turbulence methods for wind energy

Abstract: Wakes have been the subject of many studies for over a century. Within the past couple of decades, wind turbines have become one of the focal applications for wake studies, as the turbulent wakes that they produce will interact with downstream turbines in a wind farm. This presentation will focus on three examples where techniques from fundamental turbulence research can help to better understand the turbulence evolution within wind farms. First, the evolution of the wake of a single wind turbine is discussed in the framework of small-scale turbulence. Second, an example is given how wind turbine wake modeling can be improved by means of a virtual origin native to the analytical solution for bluff body wakes. Finally, the turbulence interaction of two merging wakes is discussed.