Professor Johan Meyers
Department of Mechanical Engineering
KU Leuven, Belgium
will give the lecture
Wind-farm boundary layer interaction, blockage and
excitation of gravity waves
Abstract:
With the development of large-scale wind farms featuring increasingly high power densities, wind-farm blockage has emerged as a major concern for developers. This presentation examines the underlying physics of wind-farm blockage, with particular emphasis on hydrostatic blockage effects arising from atmospheric stratification and associated excitation of gravity waves. Large-eddy simulations are employed to investigate the relevant parameter space, focusing on both the adverse impacts of blockage, such as unfavorable pressure gradients and flow deceleration upstream of the wind farm, and the potential benefits associated with favorable pressure gradients within the farm itself. The importance of blockage and gravity waves wind-farm wake recovery is also briefly discussed. Finally, consequences of blockage for wind-farm control are discussed.