Publications Details

Preliminary field test of the wind turbine wake imaging system

Herges, Thomas H.; Bossert, David B.; Schmitt, Randal L.; Maniaci, David C.; Glen, Crystal C.; Naughton, Brian T.

The Sandia Wake Imaging System is being developed to improve the spatial and temporal resolution capabilities of velocity measurements within the inflow and wake of wind turbines for the purpose of validating high-fidelity models. Doppler Global Velocimetry has been selected for use by the Sandia Wake Imaging System for its ability to scale to large field of view while still capturing instantaneous coherent structures. A set of field tests have been conducted over a 2 m × 2 m viewing area to investigate how well the system could scale to larger viewing areas applicable to planned wind turbine field testing. Successful velocity measurements of a surrogate 1 m diameter fan flow were achieved which compared favorably to independent sonic anemometer measurements. The system sensitivity limits were analyzed over a range of signal levels to calibrate radiometric modeling used to scale the system for deployment at the Scaled Wind Farm Technology facility operated by Sandia National Laboratories through U.S. Department of Energy funding. Measurement results indicate the system was near the receiver shot noise limit and that an instantaneous velocity measurement with a 1 m/s noise is in all likelihood possible on a 5 m × 5 m viewing region at the Scaled Wind Farm Technology facility.