Dynamic wind turbine wake trajectory control: Strategies and real-time validation

Wind farm control has demonstrated power production enhancements using yaw-based wake steering. However, slower yaw actuation rates compared to inflow change rate cause time-varying downstream-rotor-wake overlap conditions, diminishing its benefits. To accommodate for inflow variations, closed-loop wake control can be an effective approach to minimize wake trajectory uncertainty. In this regard, the contribution of this dissertation represents preliminary work in the construction of closed-loop wake control, where the contribution is focused on the development and validation of its fundamental building blocks: wake actuation and wake position detection. To emulate the full-scale physics of wake control based on changes in real time, the wind tunnel-based platform HAWKS, equipped with a fully controllable model wind turbine and advanced flow monitoring system, was developed and its wake prediction capabilities were validated. In regard to the wake actuation, this dissertation proposes a novel wind turbine yaw-based wake steering method that incorporates rotor speed control, a much faster control action, to reduce wake deflection oscillations caused by variable inflow direction. It was found that the variable inflow direction causes proportional changes in the cross-stream thrust component leading to wake trajectory variations. This wake trajectory stabilization method is based on counteracting the inflow cross-stream thrust effect by altering the rotor speed. In regard to the wake position detection, this dissertation proposes the tip-vortex-based tracking approach, which tracks the instantaneous strengths of the streamwise 1P spectral energy peaks as the wake interface oscillate around a desired position. It was demonstrated through wind tunnel experiments that yaw-based wake steering statically applied in combination with speed control effectively improves the mixing or momentum transport leading to enhance wake recovery and counteracts the dynamic cross-stream thrust component induced by variable inflow direction. The tip-vortex-based tracking approach revealed wake oscillation reduction around a desired position resulting from static yaw

Author dc:creator

• Castillo Solis, Ricardo

Contributors dc:contributor

• Westergaard, Carsten
• Pol, Suhas
• Pal, Ranadip
• Bayne, Stephen B.

• Wind turbine wake
• Wake control
• Wind farm control
• Wake steering
• Wake detection

Statement dc:rights

• Restricted until 2024-09.

Language dc:language

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2346/85978

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:tdl-ir.tdl.org:2346/85978