Numerical analysis of the wake of a 10kW HAWT

With the rising of wind power industry and the ever-growing scale of wind farm, the research for the wake performance of wind turbine has an important guiding significance for the overall arrangement of wind turbines in the large wind farm. The wake simulation model of 10kW horizontal-axis wind turbine is presented on the basis of Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and the RNG k-epsilon turbulence model for applying to the rotational fluid flow. The sliding mesh technique in ANSYS CFX software is used to solve the coupling equation of velocity and pressure. The characters of the average velocity in the wake zone under rated inlet wind speed and different rotor rotational speeds have been investigated. Based on the analysis results, it is proposed that the horizontal spacing between the wind turbines is less than two times radius of rotor, and its longitudinal spacing is less than five times of radius. And other results have also been obtained, which are of great importance for large wind farms.