Piloted Simulation of the Rotorcraft Wind Turbine Wake Interaction during Hover and Transit Flights

Alexander Štrbac, Daniel Heinrich Greiwe, Frauke Hoffmann, Marion Cormier and Thorsten Lutz
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Alexander Štrbac: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Flight Systems, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Daniel Heinrich Greiwe: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Flight Systems, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Frauke Hoffmann: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Flight Systems, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Marion Cormier: Institute of Aerodynamics and Gas Dynamics (IAG), University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
Thorsten Lutz: Institute of Aerodynamics and Gas Dynamics (IAG), University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-34

Abstract: Helicopters are used for offshore wind farms for maintenance and support flights. The number of helicopter operations is increasing with the expansion of offshore wind energy, which stresses the point that the current German regulations have not yet been validated through scientific analysis. A collaborative research project between DLR, the Technical University of Munich, the University of Stuttgart and the University of Tübingen has been conducted to examine the sizes of the flight corridors on offshore wind farms and the lateral safety clearance for helicopter hoist operations at offshore wind turbines. This paper details the results of piloted helicopter simulations in a realistic offshore wind farm scenario. The far-wake of rotating wind turbines and the near-wake of non-rotating wind turbines have been simulated with high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics under realistic turbulent inflow conditions. The resulting flow fields have been processed by superposition during piloted simulations in the research flight simulator AVES to examine the flight corridors in transit flights and the lateral safety clearance in hovering flights. The results suggest a sufficient size for the flight corridor and sufficient lateral safety clearance at the offshore wind turbines in the considered scenarios.

Keywords: handling qualities; piloted simulation; wind turbine wake; helicopter vortex–rotor interaction; wake vortex encounter; helicopter offshore operation; flight safety; rotorcraft; computational fluid dynamics; offshore wind energy (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: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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