Comparison of Analytical Wake Models with Wind Tunnel Data

In this paper a comparison between the wake velocity, wake deflection and turbulence intensity predictions of several wake models was carried out against wind tunnel data obtained with a state-of-the-art scaled wind turbine model. In order to achieve a fair comparison, the models' parameters were all tuned with respect to the same experimental dataset using the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) method. A quantitative assessment of all models' predictions highlighted that the Porté-Agel model seems to provide, for a wide range of inflow and wind turbine operating conditions, the most accurate estimation of the wake flow field. Further improvements to the model are also suggested in the conclusions.