Study of Vertical-Axis Wind Farm Layouts Using a 2D Actuator-Cylinder RANS Model

The actuator-cylinder RANS (Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations) model was used to study the performance of two different arrays of wind turbines. The staggered array proved to be more efficient than the fish-school array (grouped in pairs) in most directions; however, the fish-school array outperformed the conventional staggered array when the pairs of turbines were facing the wind. Increases in global power coefficient up to 16% were found when the wind speed was 8 ms-1 and up to 10% when the wind speed was 10 ms-1. Despite the fish-school array being slightly less efficient, this array yielded almost twice as much power density as the staggered array in almost all directions. The current methodology proves to be a fast tool for the estimation of vertical-axis wind turbine farms compared to full RANS simulations.