NAISS
SUPR
NAISS Projects
SUPR
Actuator Disc Analysis of Multi-Rotor Offshore Wind Turbines
Dnr:

NAISS 2025/22-1542

Type:

NAISS Small Compute

Principal Investigator:

Emil Andersson

Affiliation:

Uppsala universitet

Start Date:

2025-11-07

End Date:

2026-12-01

Primary Classification:

20306: Fluid Mechanics

Webpage:

Allocation

Abstract

The present project uses actuator disc modeling (ADM) to investigate the aerodynamic performance and wake interactions of innovative wind turbine concepts for offshore wind energy applications. There is a high demand for electricity from renewable energy sources, and the interest for off-shore wind power is increasing. The new conditions, especially for floating off-shore wind power, makes it difficult to employ the traditional on-shore wind turbine design directly. Innovative wind turbine designs are investigated to mitigate the levelized cost of energy for off-shore wind turbines. The aim is to assess the potential of using ADM to predict and characterize power extraction, wake recovery, and spatial efficiency across diverse turbine designs. Fully resolved simulations are computationally expensive and not feasible for large-scale parametric studies. The ADM is a static, non-rotating representation of turbine thrust and is well-suited for capturing the first-order momentum deficits induced by the turbines in the flow. This modeling approach enables efficient evaluation of design parameters while maintaining acceptable fidelity for early-stage concept evaluation. This study focuses on using ADM to compare a conventional single-rotor horizontal axis wind turbine configuration with a dual-rotor configuration, featuring two horizontal axis rotors side by side. The rotors simulated are based on the IEA 10MW reference turbine which is described by Bortolotti et al in a technical report by Danish Technical University (DTU) as part of Task 37. First the ADM is validated against the data in the technical report. Finally, the simulation results for dual-rotor configuration will be compared against the single-rotor configuration baseline to quantify performance. The simulations are conducted under idealized offshore conditions to isolate rotor interaction effects. The study includes: • Domain size sensitivity analysis to ensure minimal blockage and reflection effects. • Mesh convergence study to verify numerical accuracy and grid independence. • Parametric sweep of ADM settings to calibrate the model for realistic rotor behavior. • Wind speed variation study to evaluate performance across a range of operating conditions. This project contributes to the advancement of next-generation offshore wind technologies by providing insights into the aerodynamic performance of diverse wind turbine designs. The out-comes will inform future high-fidelity simulations and experimental validations, ultimately sup-porting the design of more efficient, compact, and adaptable offshore wind farms. Future work includes investigation of more designs, such as vertical axis wind turbines, multi-rotor turbines, and tilted turbines.