COMPARISON STUDY FOR WIND RESOURCE ASSESMENT IN COMPLEX DOMAIN USING METEODYN AND WINDSIM

Abstract: Two commercial Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) wind resource assessment tools namely Meteodyn WT and Windsim have been compared for an embankment site named Hjardemål. For comparison of both software, a controlled experiment is carried out for a fixed set-up with same domain size and same number of cells in the X, Y and Z directions. Wind flow has been assessed in the perpendicular upstream direction to the embankment. Vertical wind profiles observed on site at four different towers distributed (-397.69 m) before, (0 m) at, (30.83 m) just after and (199.16 m) after the embankment are compared with both software outputs. Results show that Meteodyn WT predicts closer vertical wind profiles before, at and after whilst wind Windsim predicts a closer wind profile just after the embankment. The discussion of results is based on the limitations of both software tools which have conditioned the comparison.