Supervisorer: Wen Zhong Shen, DTU Vindenergi - Jens Nørkær Sørensen, DTU Vindenergi - Wei Jun Zhu, DTU Vindenergi
Eksaminatorer: Helge Aagaard Madsen, DTU Vindenergi - Ricardo Burdisso, Virginia Tech - Bo Søndergaard, Sweco Denmark A/S
Titel: Development of an Advanced Noise Propagation Model for Noise Optimization in Wind Farms
Increasing demand in renewable energy has resulted in large wind energy deployment.
Even though wind turbines are among the most environmentally friendly way of generating electricity, the noise emitted by them is the main obstacle for further installation. Wind farm developers rely on noise mapping tools for environmental assessment studies. Inaccurate noise mapping during wind farm development phase may result in under or overprediction of the sound pressure levels. The former causes downregulation of wind turbines under certain atmospheric conditions (e.g. for some incoming wind directions or time of the day) and the latter causes the turbines to be located at less resourceful sites in advance. Both of these scenarios increase the cost of energy. Hence there is a need for more accurate noise mapping tools. The thesis addresses the wind turbine noise propagation issue via development of a new tool based on combined source, propagation and flow models.
The major contributions are the more realistic modelling of wind turbine noise propagation with regards to far field levels. The results investigate the complex interaction between wind turbine operational conditions, wakes, aerodynamic noise and atmospheric propagation.