An Experimental Study on the Actuator Line Method with Anisotropic Regularization Kernel

Nowadays, actuator line method (ALM) has become the most potential method in wind turbine simulations, especially in wind farm simulations and fluid-structure interaction simulations. The regularization kernel, which was originally introduced to ALM to avoid numerical singularity, has been found to have great influence on rotor torque predictions and wake simulations. This study focuses on the effect of each parameter used in the standard kernel and the anisotropic kernel. To validate the simulation, the torque and the wake characteristics of a model wind turbine were measured. The result shows that the Gaussian width ϵ (for standard kernel) and the parameter in chord length direction ϵ c (for anisotropic kernel) mainly affect the normal velocity of each blade element when using ALM but have little effect on the tangential velocity calculation. Therefore, these parameters have great influence on the attack angle and rotor torque prediction. The thickness parameter ϵ t is the main difference between the standard kernel and the anisotropic kernel and it has a strong effect on the wind turbine wakes simulation. When using the anisotropic kernel, the wake structure is clearer and less likely to disperse, which is more consistent with the experimental results. Based on the studies above, a non-uniform mesh is recommended when using the anisotropic regularization kernel. Using a mesh refined in the main flow direction, ALM with anisotropic kernel can predict torque and wake characteristics better while maintaining low computational costs.