Numerical Models

Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model

WRF is a tool for numerical weather prediction (NWP) developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the former Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), the Naval Research Laboratory, the University of Oklahoma, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Running WRF in large-eddy simulation (LES) mode, nested within a mesoscale WRF parent domain allows for online coupling between meso- and micro-scales. WRF-LES implements a generalized actuator disk and generalized actuator line.

More information: https://www.mmm.ucar.edu/weather-research-and-forecasting-model

MMC-WRF

Within the MMC project, several additions have been made to the WRF model for coupling and wind energy related processes. Included in this version of WRF are several perturbation strategies, enhancements for running idealized cases, adjustments to the tslist functionality, and more. This version is also tagged at various stages for particular studies. If attempting to re-create results, please make sure you are running on the tagged version for the study of interest.

Download MMC-WRF

This version of WRF is freely available on GitHub: MMC-WRF

Community Survey

We conducted a survey to better understand how WRF is being used for wind-energy applications. More specifically, the goal of the survey was to provide guidance on best practices, identify aspects of model usage in need of further investigation, and gain insight into barriers experienced by wind-energy modeling teams in the use of WRF for their research.

For survey questions, results, and discussion including research opportunities, see Kaul [2022].

Simulator fOr Wind Farm Applications (SOWFA)

SOWFA is a set of CFD tools developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) based on the open-source OpenFOAM (Field Operation And Manipulation) platform for simulating the microscale atmospheric boundary layer environment. Wind turbines are modeled as actuator lines (or actuator disks) with the option to include momentum sources to represent the wind turbine tower and nacelle. Coupling to the NREL OpenFAST (Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, Turbulence) model provides comprehensive aeroservoelastic capabilities.

More information: https://nwtc.nrel.gov/SOWFA

Download SOWFA

SOWFA is freely available on GitHub: SOWFA-6. SOWFA-6 depends on OpenFOAM-6. To use wind turbine aeroelastic coupling, OpenFAST is required.

AMR-Wind

AMR-Wind is a massively parallel, block-structured incompressible LES for wind energy applications. Based on the AMReX framework, it is well equipped to run on next-generation, leadership-class supercomputers with CPU and/or GPU architectures. The software is under active development by researchers at NREL, Sandia National Laboratories, and Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. Like SOWFA, AMR-Wind has the ability to perform profile assimilation and interface with OpenFAST for aeroelastic modeling. It can also be coupled with Nalu-Wind, an overset near-body flow solver, amd behave as a background solver.

More information: https://exawind.github.io/amr-wind/

Download AMR-Wind

AMR-Wind is freely available on GitHub: amr-wind.

References

Resulting Publications

Kaul2022

Colleen Kaul. WRF Modeling Practices for Wind Energy: Current Status and Future Needs. Technical Report PNNL-xxxxx, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 2022.