Vortex Particle-Mesh with Immersed Lifting Lines for Aerospace and Wind Engineering

Abstract We present the treatment of lifting lines with a Vortex Particle-Mesh (VPM) methodology. The VPM method relies on the Lagrangian discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations in vorticity-velocity formulation. The use of this hybrid discretization offers several advantages. The particles are used solely for the advection, thereby waiving classical time stability constraints. They also exploit the compactness of vorticity support, leading to high computational gains for external flow simulations. The mesh, on the other hand, handles all the other computationally intensive tasks, such as the evaluation of the differential operators and the use of fast Fourier-based Poisson solvers, which allow the combination of unbounded directions and inlet/outlet boundaries. Both discretizations communicate through high order interpolation. The mesh and the interpolation also allow for additional advances; they are used to handle Lagrangian distortion by reinitializing the particle positions onto a regular grid. This crucial step, referred to as remeshing, guarantees the accuracy of the method. In addition, the resulting methodology provides computational efficiency and scalability to massively parallel architectures. Sources of vorticity are accounted for through a lifting line approach. This line handles the attached and shed vorticity contributions in a Lagrangian manner. Its immersed treatment efficiently captures the development of vorticity from thin sheets into a three-dimensional field. We apply this approach to the simulation of wake flows encountered in aeronautical and wind energy applications. An important aspect in these fields is the handling of turbulent inflows. We have developed a technique for the introduction of pre-computed or synthetic turbulent flow fields in vorticity form. Our treatment is based on particles as well and consistent with the Lagrangian character of the method. We apply here our method to the investigation of wind turbine wakes over very large distances, reaching cluster or wind farm sizes.