Abstract

This work is part of the exaFOAM project, aimed at optimizing the open-source CFD software OpenFOAM for massively parallel HPC architectures and overcoming performance bottlenecks. In the analysis of wind parks, the flow around the wind turbines is dominated by small-scale fluid dynamics (< 2 km), which in turn depends on mesoscale atmosphere dynamics (< 1000 km). The successful coupling of these two scales is essential to study wind resources, along with their uncertainty and addressing the interaction of clustered wind farms. These are critical factors for the sustainable development of wind energy. OpenFOAM has built-in models for the simulation of wind turbines and the atmospheric boundary layer, and this test case uses a modified version of the turbinesFoam actuator line model (ALM) external library. These models are used to simulate the flow over a wind park, with a focus on the power production in a challenging configuration, where the wind flows in the direction of the row of turbines. This test case represents the offshore wind farm Westermost Rough, located off the UK coast and consisting of 35 Siemens 6 MW turbines with 154 m rotor diameter and a hub height of 102 m above sea level. Detailed information and case setup can be found in the README.md file contained in the case setup file.

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