A1 Journal article (refereed), original research
Impact of different forest densities on atmospheric boundary-layer development and wind-turbine wake
Open Access publication
Publication Details Authors: Adedipe A. Taiwo, Chaudhari Ashvinkumar, Kauranne Tuomo
Publisher: Wiley: 12 months
Publication year: 2020
Language: English
Related Journal or Series Information: Wind Energy Journal acronym: WE
ISSN: 1095-4244
eISSN: 1099-1824
JUFO-Level of this publication: 2
Open Access: Open Access publication
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Abstract
The aim of this work is to investigate the Atmospheric Boundary-Layer (ABL) flow and the wind-turbine wake over forests with varying Leaf-Area Densities (LAD). The forest LAD profile used in this study is based
on a real forest site, Ryningsnäs, located in Sweden. The reference turbine used to model the wake is a well-
documented 5-MW turbine which is implemented in the simulations using an Actuator Line Model (ALM).
All simulations are carried out with OpenFOAM using the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approach. Twelve forest cases with Leaf Area Index (LAI) ranging from 0.42 to 8.5 are considered. Results
show that the mean velocity decreases with increasing LAI within the forest canopy, but increases with LAI
above the hub height. Meanwhile, the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) varies non-monotonically with forest
density. The TKE increases with forest density and reaches to its maximum at an average LAI of 1.70,
afterwards, it decreases gradually as the density increases. It is also observed that the forest density has a
clear role in the wake development and recovery. Comparisons between no-forest and forest cases show that
the forest characteristics help in damping the added turbulence from the turbine. As a consequence, the
forest with the highest upstream turbulence has the shortest wake downstream of the turbine.