Turbulence ahead
Monday, September 3, 2012 - 07:31
in Physics & Chemistry
Although the wind may blow smoothly onto a wind turbine, it comes out the other end shredded into a complex collage of whorls, large and small. In a wind farm, the turbulent wake generated by the first row of turbines drives the turbines in the next rows, which produce up to 40% less power and suffer more from bumpier winds. Researchers from EPFL's Wind Engineering and Renewable Energy Laboratory (WIRE) led by Fernando Porté-Agel are developing tools to improve the overall efficiency of wind farms. This July they published their results in two articles in Boundary-Layer Meteorology.