Time-Resolved Near-Wake Measurements of a 2MW Wind Turbine

This paper presents time-resolved velocity measurements performed in the near wake of a multi-megawatt wind turbine, using a novel nacelle-mounted fast-response aerodynamic probe. The aerodynamic probe, which has been developed at ETH Zurich, consists of a hemispherical 5-hole probe equipped with fast-pressure sensors. The probe has a measurement uncertainty of ±0.1m/s and a measurement bandwidth of 65Hz. In addition to measurement of the three-dimensional wind velocity vector, the probe is instrumented for the real-time monitoring of meteorological conditions. The measured data are processed in real-time, stored on on-board and accessible via a GPRS modem. As the aerodynamic probe is installed adjacent to the wind turbine’s ultrasonic anemometer, the measurements of the two systems can be compared. The measured wind speeds are found to be in very good agreement and remains on an averaged within ±0.24m/s deviation to the ultrasonic anemometer. The measured yaw angle shows an average offset of −7.5°. This difference is observed since the ultrasonic anemometer does not accurately capture the turning of the flow across the wind turbine’s rotor. From the time-resolved measurements of the aerodynamic probe, the phase-lock averaged measurements show that over one blade passing period the turbulence intensity varies from 13 to 24%, with a maximum degree of anisotropy above 1.4. It is found that a hub passage vortex, which extends over more than 50% of the blade passage width, is present. Thus, from a turbine control perspective the actual placement of the ultrasonic anemometer, even when corrected, can lead to high yaw angle misalignment when the wind turbine is located in moderately or highly complex terrain.© 2013 ASME