Testing of Frozen Turbulence Hypothesis for Wind Turbine Applications with a Scanning Lidar System

Taylor’s frozen turbulence hypothesis is tested in its applicability for wind turbine applications. In this research full field measurements are performed at a test site for multi-megawatt wind turbines by means of a pulsed LIDAR with a scanning device. The system is installed at the top of the nacelle of a 5 MW wind turbine. It provides simultaneous wind speed, with a maximum sampling rate of 5 Hz, at different stations parallel to the mean wind. Measurements in a range between 0.4 and 1.6 rotor diameter are performed following several two and three dimensional trajectories. The spectral characteristics of measurements taken simultaneously at different separation distances are studied. The scanning strategy which maximizes the wavenumber region where results are consistent with Taylor’s hypothesis is assessed. The best results are achieved by a horizontal sliding trajectory with valid wavenumbers up to 0.125 rad/m.