Lattice Boltzmann Computations of the Fluid Flow in the Wake of a Wind Turbine Modelled by a Porous Disk

The study of wind turbine wakes was the subject of numerous papers. However, most computational studies were based on Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) equations or on large eddy simulations (LES) technique. In this work, a different technique based on Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is applied. This approach allows the numerical investigations of the flow field in the wake of a wind turbine modelled by a solid porous disk. The LBM is a mesoscopic simulation method for fluid flow computations. The applied model is based on the Regularized Bhatnagar-Groos-Krook (R-BGK) model and an LBM-LES method is used to solve the turbulent flow at a Reynolds number Re = 40000. Three-dimensional computations are performed using the open source Palabos code. The effects of the lattice velocity schemes D3Q19 and D3Q27, the value of Smagorinsky’s constant and the type of boundary conditions on the solid porous disk are investigated. The potential of 3D LBM computations to describe the far wake of an horizontal axis wind turbine is also shown.