Computational Fluid Dynamics model of stratified atmospheric boundary-layer flow

For wind resource assessment, the wind industry is increasingly relying on computational fluid dynamics models of the neutrally stratified surface-layer. So far, physical processes that are important to the whole atmospheric boundary-layer, such as the Coriolis effect, buoyancy forces and heat transport, are mostly ignored. In order to decrease the uncertainty of wind resource assessment, the present work focuses on atmospheric flows that include stability and Coriolis effects. The influence of these effects on the whole atmospheric boundary-layer are examined using a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes k- epsilon model. To validate the model implementations, results are compared against measurements from several large-scale field campaigns, wind tunnel experiments, and previous simulations and are shown to significantly improve the predictions. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.