Civil Engineering case study
Simulation of the solar power plant construction loading under strong wind conditions
Our customer, the developer of solar power plants, wanted to analyze the risks connected with problem the plants are facing because of strong wind conditions. The forces and moments acting on the power plant construction are enormous.
The customer was deciding between experimental measurement and CFD simulation. Due to the fact that the measurement was not possible in measuring scale 1:1 (not all variables and dimensionless numbers would be preserved) customer finally decided to use CFD simulation.
The aim was to compute the forces and moments acting on the power plant construction under different angles of attack, different elevation angles and different wind speeds. The other aim of the project was to determine the ideal position (elevation, rotation) to minimize forces and moments when extreme conditions come.
We have developed methodology for solving incompressible turbulent fluid flow with extra emphasis on forces and moments acting on structures. A special care was taken while testing various turbulence models to get uncertainty coming from turbulence model. Another big effort was to eliminate case grid sensitivity using mesh sensitivity tests.
Altogether we have run hundreds of single simulations to catch all the requirements and physical and numerical phenomena. The customer received deep CFD study of the solar power plant construction loading under strong wind conditions.
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