Performance Analysis of a Large-Scale Wind Turbine in Wind Shear and Inflow Turbulence Conditions

In this paper, the effects of the atmospheric boundary layer as well as the inflow turbulence on the performance of a large-scale wind turbine are investigated. The reference wind turbine is the NREL 5 megawatts with a rotor diameter of 126 meters. Wind shear modeling is carried out using the mixing length theory. Due to the importance of turbulence analysis, the Sandia method is applied. According to the reference level, the roughness coefficients of 0.01, 0.2 and 0.5 and disturbances in the roughness of 0.5 with the intensity of 1, 5 and 15 percent are studied. The aerodynamic forces of the rotor are calculated based on the modified blade element momentum theory. The results show that in the case of maximum roughness the averaged output power is reduced to 160 kW. Moreover, at 15% turbulence intensity, 50 kN and 25 kN are added to the maximum/minimum thrust force value, respectively.