An Analytical Procedure for Evaluating Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines in Yawed Flow

A new analytical method for evaluating the performance of wind turbines in yawed flow is presented. The method, based on momentum theory, relates the yaw angle to the tip-path-plane orientation of the turbine rotor and the non-dimensional deficit velocity. The analytical calculations are compared with results from Rot3DC, a kernel within the RotCFD software package, an integrated environment for rotors. Rot3DC, a 3-D Navier-Stokes based module, can simulate one or more Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT) and uses the concept of momentum sources to compute the turbine performance and flowfield in a self contained manner. Rot3DC simulations are validated against NREL Phase-II experiments. Analytical results for yawed turbines correlate well with Rot3DC and are found to be within 10% error margin for the extreme yaws considered. The developed analytical formulation provides a simple model for quantification of turbine performance in yawed flow and can be used as an input to onboard feedback systems for yaw control.