Cutler, James; Stanley, Andrew; Ning, Andrew (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Ning, Andrew (Brigham Young University, Mechanical Engineering)
Wind farms are severely affected by negative wake interactions between turbines. By opti- mizing the tilt angle of the turbines in a farm, wakes may be deflected away from downstream turbines, increasing the overall energy production. In this study, we will optimize the tilt angle of turbines in a wind farm to maximize energy production. We will use an analytic wake model modified to consider wake deflection from tilt, and gradient-based optimization. We will consider optimizing the tilt angle of each turbine assuming that it will remain fixed for the lifetime of the farm. We will also consider active tilt control. Preliminary results with a simple five turbine row show that a large tilt angles of 35_ in the front upstream turbine increases the power production of the five turbines by about 20% compared to the power production with no tilt in the front turbine. Although these preliminary results only consider one wind direction and exaggerate the gains from wake deflection through tilt, we expect that considering a whole wind farm and wind distribution will still result in significant gains.