A diffusion-based wind turbine wake model

Describing the evolution of a wind turbine’s wake from a top-hat profile near the turbine to a Gaussian profile in the far wake is a central feature of many engineering wake models. Existing approaches, such as super-Gaussian wake models, rely on a set of tuning parameters that are typically obtained from fitting high-fidelity data. In the current study, we present a new engineering wake model that leverages the similarity between the shape of a turbine’s wake normal to the streamwise direction and the diffusion of a passive scalar from a disk source. This new wake model provides an analytical expression for a streamwise scaling function that ensures the conservation of linear momentum in the wake region downstream of a turbine. The model also considers the different rates of wake expansion that are known to occur in the near- and far-wake regions. Validation is presented against high-fidelity numerical data and experimental measurements from the literature, confirming a consistent good agreement across a wide range of turbine operating conditions. A comparison is also drawn with several existing engineering wake models, indicating that the diffusion-based model consistently provides more accurate wake predictions. This new unified framework allows for extensions to more complex wake profiles by making adjustments to the diffusion equation. The derivation of the proposed model included the evaluation of analytical solutions to several mathematical integrals that can be useful for other physical applications. © The Author(s), 2024.