Evaluating Terrain as a Turbulence Generation Method

Patrick Hawbecker and Matthew Churchfield
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Patrick Hawbecker: National Center for Atmospheric Research, 3450 Mitchell Ln., Boulder, CO 80301, USA
Matthew Churchfield: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 15013 Denver West Parkway, Golden, CO 80501, USA

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-26

Abstract: When driving microscale large-eddy simulations with mesoscale model solutions, turbulence will take space to develop, known as fetch , on the microscale domain. To reduce fetch, it is common to add perturbations near the boundaries to speed up turbulence development. However, when simulating domains over complex terrain, it is possible that the terrain itself can quickly generate turbulence within the boundary layer. It is shown here that rugged terrain is able to generate turbulence without the assistance of a perturbation strategy; however, the levels of turbulence generated are improved when adding perturbations at the inlet. Flow over smoothed, but not flat, terrain fails to generate adequate turbulence throughout the boundary layer in all tests conducted herein. Sensitivities to the strength of the mean wind speed and boundary layer height are investigated and show that higher wind speeds produce turbulence over terrain features that slower wind speeds do not. Further, by increasing the height of the capping inversion, the effectiveness of topography alone to generate turbulence throughout the depth of the boundary is diminished. In all cases, the inclusion of a perturbation strategy improved simulation performance with respect to turbulence development.

Keywords: turbulence; terrain; large-eddy simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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