Adding complex terrain and stable atmospheric condition capability to the OpenFOAM-based flow solver of the simulator for on/offshore wind farm applications (SOWFA)

National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 15013 Denver West Parkway Golden, CO 80401, USA

^a e-mail: matt.churchfield@nrel.gov

Abstract

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Simulator for On/Offshore Wind Farm Applications contains an OpenFOAM-based flow solver for performing large-eddy simulation of flow through wind plants. The solver computes the atmospheric boundary layer flow and models turbines with actuator lines. Until recently, the solver was limited to flows over flat terrain and could only use the standard Smagorinsky subgrid-scale model. In this work, we present our improvements to the flow solver that enable us to 1) use any OpenFOAM-standard subgrid-scale model and 2) simulate flow over complex terrain. We used the flow solver to compute a stably stratified atmospheric boundary layer using both the standard and the Lagrangian-averaged scale-independent dynamic Smagorinsky models. Surprisingly, the results using the standard Smagorinsky model compare well to other researchers' results of the same case, although it is often said that the standard Smagorinsky model is too dissipative for accurate stable stratification calculations. The scale-independent dynamic subgrid-scale model produced poor results, probably due to the spikes in model constant with values as high as 4.6. We applied a simple bounding of the model constant to remove these spikes, which caused the model to produce results much more in line with other researchers' results. We also computed flow over a simple hilly terrain and performed some basic qualitative analysis to verify the proper operation of the terrain-local surface stress model we employed.