Towards Identifying Contribution of Wake Turbulence to Inflow Noise from Wind Turbines

Downstream turbines in a wind farm often operate under the influence of wakes from upstream turbines. Aerodynamic losses and aeromechanical issues (stochastic loads) associated with such wake-turbine interactions have been investigated before. However, the role such interactions play in the generation of aerodynamic noise has not been evaluated. This paper presents a two-step approach for predicting noise due to wake-turbine interaction. The first step involves an aerodynamic analysis of a wind farm using large eddy simulations. Time accurate data and turbulence statistics in the turbine wakes are obtained from this simulation just ahead of the downstream wind turbines. The second step uses the turbulence information with aeroacoustic models to predict radiated noise in the far field. Simulation results of two simplified model problems corresponding to these two steps are presented in this paper.