Mikael Sjöholm

Windscanner: 3-D wind and turbulence measurements from three steerable doppler lidars

At RISO DTU we has started to build a new-designed laser-based lidar scanning facility for detailed remote measurements of the wind fields engulfing the huge wind turbines of today. Our aim is to measure in real-time 3D wind vector data at several hundred points every second: 1) upstream of the turbine, 2) near the turbine, and 3) in the wakes of the turbine rotors. Our first proto-type Windscanner is now being built from three commercially available Continuous Wave (CW) wind lidars modified with fast adjustable focus length and equipped with 2-D prism-based scan heads, in conjunction with a commercially available pulsed wind lidar for extended vertical profiling range. Design, construction and initial testing of the new 3-D wind lidar scanning facility are described and the functionality of the Windscanner and its potential as a new research facility within the wind energy community is discussed.

Spatial averaging-effects on turbulence measured by a continuous-wave coherent lidar

The influence of spatial volume averaging of a focused continuous-wave coherent Doppler lidar on observed wind turbulence in the atmospheric surface layer is described and analysed. For the first time, comparisons of lidar-measured turbulent spectra with spectra simultaneously obtained from a mast-mounted sonic anemometer at 78 meters height over homogeneous terrain at the test station for large wind turbines at Hovsore in Western Jutland, Denmark are presented for various backscattering and cloud conditions. Good agreement is found between lidar-measured spectra and spectra predicted by applying a theoretical lidar sampling filter to the three-dimensional turbulence structure.

Direct measurement of the spectral transfer function of a laser based anemometer

The effect of a continuous-wave (cw) laser based anemometers probe volume on the measurement of wind turbulence is studied in this paper. Wind speed time series acquired by both a remote sensing cw laser anemometer, whose line-of-sight was aligned with the wind direction, and by a reference sensor (sonic anemometer) located in the same direction, were used. The spectral transfer function, which describes the attenuation of the power spectral density of the wind speed turbulence, was calculated and found to be in good agreement with the theoretical exponential function, which is based on the properties of the probe volume of a focused Gaussian laser beam. Parameters such as fluctuations of the wind direction, as well as the overestimation of the laser Doppler spectrum threshold, were found to affect the calculation of the spectral transfer function by introducing high frequency noise.

Characterization of wind velocities in the upstream induction zone of a wind turbine using scanning continuous-wave lidars

As a wind turbine generates power, induced velocities, lower than the freestream velocity, will be present upstream of the turbine due to perturbation of the flow by the rotor. In this study, the upstream induction zone of a 225 kW horizontal axis Vestas V27 wind turbine located at the Danish Technical Universitys Riso campus is investigated using a scanning Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) system. Three short-range continuous-wave “WindScanner” lidars are positioned in the field around the V27 turbine allowing detection of all three components of the wind velocity vectors within the induction zone. The time-averaged mean wind speeds at different locations in the upstream induction zone are measured by scanning a horizontal plane at hub height and a vertical plane centered at the middle of the rotor extending roughly 1.5 rotor diameters (D) upstream of the rotor. Turbulence statistics in the induction zone are studied by more rapidly scanning along individual lines perpendicular to the rotor at differ...

Time series analysis of continuous-wave coherent Doppler Lidar wind measurements

The influence of spatial volume averaging of a focused 1.55 μm continuous-wave coherent Doppler Lidar on observed wind turbulence measured in the atmospheric surface layer over homogeneous terrain is described and analysed. Comparison of Lidar-measured turbulent spectra with spectra simultaneously obtained from a mast-mounted sonic anemometer at 78 meters height at the test station for large wind turbines at Hovsore in Western Jutland, Denmark is presented for the first time.

Two-Dimensional Rotorcraft Downwash Flow Field Measurements by Lidar-Based Wind Scanners with Agile Beam Steering

AbstractA major risk to helicopters is the unexpected encounter of degraded visual environments in close-to-ground operations, where a loss of visibility often is caused by clouds of dust (brownout) or snow (whiteout) stirred up by intense downwash. The understanding of the phenomenon is limited, and there is a need for instruments that can measure flow fields on scales larger than a few meters with good resolution. This paper reports on the use of synchronized continuous-wave Doppler lidars for rotorcraft downwash flow field studies.Built from a modified ZephIR wind lidar and a double-prism arrangement for agile beam steering, a wind scanner—WindScanner—has been developed at the Department of Wind Energy at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) Riso campus. The WindScanner measures the line-of-sight component of the airflow remotely and by rapid steering, the line-of-sight direction and the focus position; all points in space within a cone with a full opening angle of 120° can be reached from about 8...

Comparison of 3D turbulence measurements using three staring wind lidars and a sonic anemometer

Three pulsed lidars were used in staring, non-scanning mode, placed so that their beams crossed close to a 3D sonic anemometer. The goal is to compare lidar volume averaged wind measurement with point measurement reference sensors and to demonstrate the feasibility of performing 3D turbulence measurements with lidars. The results show a very good correlation between the lidar and the sonic times series. The variance of the velocity measured by the lidar is attenuated due to spatial filtering, and the amount of attenuation can be predicted theoretically.

Detailed field test of yaw-based wake steering

This paper describes a detailed field-test campaign to investigate yaw-based wake steering. In yaw-based wake steering, an upstream turbine intentionally misaligns its yaw with respect to the inflow to deflect its wake away from a downstream turbine, with the goal of increasing total power production. In the first phase, a nacelle-mounted scanning lidar was used to verify wake deflection of a misaligned turbine and calibrate wake deflection models. In the second phase, these models were used within a yaw controller to achieve a desired wake deflection. This paper details the experimental design and setup. All data collected as part of this field experiment will be archived and made available to the public via the U.S. Department of Energys Atmosphere to Electrons Data Archive and Portal.

Demonstration of synchronised scanning Lidar measurements of 2D velocity fields in a boundary-layer wind tunnel

This paper combines the currently relevant research methodologies of scaled wind turbine model experiments in wind tunnels with remote-sensing short-range WindScanner Lidar measurement technology. The wind tunnel of the Politecnico di Milano was equipped with three wind turbine models and two short-range WindScanner Lidars to demonstrate the benefits of synchronised scanning Lidars in such experimental surroundings for the first time. The dual- Lidar system can provide fully synchronised trajectory scans with sampling time scales ranging from seconds to minutes. First, staring mode measurements were compared to hot wire probe measurements commonly used in wind tunnels. This yielded goodness of fit coefficients of 0.969 and 0.902 for the 1 Hz averaged u- and v-components of the wind speed, respectively, validating the 2D measurement capability of the Lidar scanners. Subsequently, the measurement of wake profiles on a line as well as wake area scans were executed to illustrate the applicability of Lidar scanning to measuring small scale wind flow effects. The downsides of Lidar with respect to the hot wire probes are the larger measurement probe volume and the loss of some measurements due to moving blades. In contrast, the benefits are the high flexibility in conducting both point measurements and area scanning, and the fact that remote sensing techniques do not disturb the flow while measuring. The research campaign revealed a high potential for using short-range WindScanner Lidar for accurately measuring small scale flow structures in a wind tunnel.

Experimental evaluation of a model for the influence of coherent wind lidars on their remote measurements of atmospheric boundary-layer turbulence

Affordable coherent wind lidars based on modern telecom components have recently emerged on the wind energy market spurred by high demand of the industry for compact and accurate remote sensing wind and turbulence profilers. Today, hundreds of ground based wind lidars that achieve the range resolution by either focusing a continuous-wave laser beam or by gating a pulsed laser beam are used for measuring mean wind and turbulence profiles in the lower atmospheric boundary-layer. However, detailed understanding of the influence of the spatial filtering of the lidars on their precise assessment of turbulence is still a challenge. For assessment of the fine structure turbulence, and in particular for the easy and fast assessment of the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy from measurements in the Kolmogorov inertial subrange, we havemodeled the atmospheric velocity structure functions and spectra obtainable from fixed-orientation along-beam wind measurements by these lidars. The dissipation rate retrieval model is experimentally evaluated with data obtained with a pulsed lidar pointing horizontally into horizontally homogeneous turbulence encountered at the top level of a 125 m tall meteorological tower, equipped with an in-situ turbulence measurement device (a three-dimensional sonic anemometer) for intercomparison. Our experimental study has revealed that the easily manageable analytical model accounts well for the observed fine structure turbulent spectra and their dependence on the pointing direction of the lidar beam relative to the mean wind direction. The results demonstrate that turbulence dissipation rates, and hence boundary-layer turbulence, can easily be obtained from wind lidar-based fine structure measurements.