Takanori Uchida

The present study compared the prediction accuracy of the three CFD software packages for simulating airflow around a three-dimensional, isolated hill with a steep slope: 1) WindSim (turbulence model: RNG k-ε RANS), 2) Meteodyn WT (turbulence model: k-L RANS), which are the leading commercially available CFD software packages in the wind power industry and 3) RIAM-COMPACT (turbulence model: standard Smagorinsky LES), which has been developed by the lead author of the present paper. Distinct diff

Because a significant portion of the topography in Japan is characterized by steep, complex terrain, which results in a complex spatial distribution of wind speed, great care is necessary for selecting a site for the construction of Wind Turbine Generators (WTGs). We have developed a CFD model for unsteady flow called Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, COMputational Prediction of Airflow over Complex Terrain (RIAM-COMPACT®). The RIAM-COMPACT® CFD model is based on Large

Because a significant portion of the topography in Japan is characterized by steep, complex terrain, which results in a complex spatial distribution of wind speed, great care is necessary for selecting a site for the construction of wind turbine generators (WTG). We have developed a CFD model for unsteady flow called RIAM‐COMPACT (Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, computational prediction of airflow over complex terrain). The RIAM‐COMPACT CFD model is based on large ed

The wake characteristics of a utility-scale wind turbine under realistic atmospheric boundary layer conditions are affected by the continuously changing wind direction arriving at the wind turbine. In the present study, the effects of continuous changes in the incoming wind direction were studied for a wind turbine on flat terrain, with the objective of understanding the wake characteristics of the wind turbine. Thus, understanding the effects of continuously changing incoming wind direction on

In this study, the new computational fluid dynamics (CFD) porous disk (PD) wake model was proposed in order to accurately predict the time-averaged wind speed deficits in the wind turbine wake region formed on the downstream side by the 2-MW wind turbine operating at a wind speed of 10 m/s. We use the concept of forest canopy model as a new CFD PD wake model, which has many research results in the meteorological field. In the forest canopy model, an aerodynamic resistance is added as an external

In the present study, numerical wind simulation was conducted by reproducing the realistic topography near wind turbine sites with high spatial resolutions and using the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) technique. The topography near wind turbine sites serves as the origin of the terrain-induced turbulence. The obtained numerical simulation results showed that the terrain-induced turbulence is generated at a small terrain feature located upstream of the wind turbine. The generated terrain-induced tur

The Duogu Wind Farm, China Huadian Group Corporation’s first wind project in Yunnan, China, has been approved by the Provincial Development and Reform Commission. The acquired site is in Mengzi, in the south-east of Yunnan Province. The developer has deployed thirty-three 1.5 MW turbines in this wind farm (49.5 MW), and the total cost of construction has been estimated to be CNY449.7 million ($69.61 million). The present study compared the prediction accuracy of two CFD software packages for sim

The present study scrutinized the impacts of terrain-induced turbulence on wind turbine blades, examining measurement data regarding wind conditions and the strains of wind turbine blades. Furthermore, we performed a high-resolution large-eddy simulation (LES) and identified the three-dimensional airflow structures of terrain-induced turbulence. Based on the LES results, we defined the Uchida-Kawashima Scale_1 (the U-K scale_1), which is a turbulence evaluation index, and clarified the existence

In the present study, wind conditions were numerically predicted for the site of the Bolund hill using the RIAM-COMPACT natural terrain version software, which is based on an LES turbulence model (CFD). In addition, airflow measurements were made using a split-fiber probe in the boundary layer wind tunnel. The characteristics of the airflow at and in the vicinity of the site of the Bolund Experiment were clarified. The study also examined the prediction accuracy of the LES turbulence simulations

Our research group is developing computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based software for wind resource and energy production assessments in complex terrain called RIAM-COMPACT (Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University (RIAM)-Computational Prediction of Airflow over Complex Terrain), based on large eddy simulation (LES). In order to verify the prediction accuracy of RIAM-COMPACT, we conduct a wind tunnel experiment that uses a two-dimensional steep ridge model with a smooth surfa

We have developed an unsteady and non-linear wind synopsis simulator called RIAM-COMPACT (Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, COMputational Prediction of Airflow over Complex Terrain) to simulate the airflow on a micro scale, i.e., a few tens of km or less. In RIAM-COMPACT, the large-eddy simulation (LES) has been adopted for turbulence modeling. LES is a technique in which the structures of relatively large eddies are directly simulated and smaller eddies are modeled us

The scope of the present study was to understand the wake characteristics of wind-turbines under various inflow shears. First, in order to verify the prediction accuracy of the in-house large-eddy simulation (LES) solver, called RIAM-COMPACT, based on a Cartesian staggered grid, we conducted a wind-tunnel experiment using a wind-turbine scale model and compared the numerical and experimental results. The total number of grid points in the computational domain was about 235 million. Parallel comp