Two-Way-Coupled Simulation of Vortex-Induced Vibrations in a Full-Scale Wind Turbine Tower
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In recent years, vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) in the context of horizontal axis wind turbines has garnered some attention. A numerical investigation by Horcas et al. (2022) examines the phenomenon as pertaining to blades subject to flow at various inclination angles, and Viré et al. (2020) considered a freely-vibrating two-dimensional cylinder at Re = 3.6 × 10^6. However, the fully three-dimensional, full-scale case remains not well understood, with little available literature on the subject matter. This work considers the uniform flow past a representative three-dimensional tower model using fully three-dimensional, two-way coupled numerical simulation at high Reynolds numbers (Re > 3.6 × 10^6). The flow is modeled using an in-house finite volume, incompressible Navier-Stokes flow solver EllipSys3D, while the structural deformation is solved using the HAWC2 code. The two-way coupling is achieved by interfacing the two codes. The manuscript investigates the fluid-structure interaction leading up to lock-in, during lock-in, and when exiting lock-in, and is - to the authors’ best knowledge - the first numerical work to explore VIV for wind turbine towers subject to realistic conditions and configurations.
