wtActuatorFOAM

Yet another actuator library to simulate wind turbines in OpenFOAM

Copyright (C) 2025 Computational Simulation Center (CSC-CONICET) - Argentina

Installation

wtActuatorFOAM was tested on openfoam.com v2412. May work on other versions as well, but not tested yet.

1. clone this repository git clone ...
2. go to the wtActuator directory cd wtActuator
3. source your OpenFOAM environment source FOAM-DIRECTORY/etc/bashrc or of2412 for example
4. run wmake

Using wtActuatorFOAM

The wtActuator class, which represents each turbine, is implemented as an fvOptions class in OpenFOAM.

To run a case, you need to add wtActuator to the libs entry in the controlDict file.

Refer to the fvOptions folder in the system directory of each tutorial case for configuration details. Each wtActuator object is associated to a cellSet defined in the topoSetDict of the case.

Each tutorial case has an ./Allrun file with the sequence for running a case.

Output

There are different levels of information to be outputed by the wtActuator. All of them occur at writeTime according to what is defined in the controlDict file.

Global information of all the wtActuators in the case are combined in unique files. According to the value set to the saveLevel the information reported is:

saveLevel	Output
0	no outActuators file
1	outActuators.csv file: Actuator name, time [s], Uref [m/s], Ud [m/s], Cp, Ct, omega [rad/s], pitch [deg], Power(Uref, Cp) [W], Thrust(Uref, Ct) [N], Torque [Nm]
2	outActuators_extended.csv file (thurst and toque accumulated at nodes): Actuator name, time [s], Thrust_actuator [N], Torque_actuator [Nm], Thrust_nodes [N], Torque_nodes [Nm]

Additionally when the saveNodeForces flag is set true a file per wtActuator is saved in the outActuatorsForces directory with information on each actuator node and writeTime:
Actuator name, time [s], node#, r [m], theta [rad], area [m^2], x [m], y [m], z [m], Unode_x [m/s], Unode_y [m/s], Unode_z [m/s],Faero_n [N/m^2], Faero_t [N/m^2]

Calibration

Some actuator models (numeric and adaptive) need an input table with the radial distribution of forces. This table can be constructed running other actuators for diffent combinations of turbine reference wind speed and actual undisturbed wind speed. The option saveNodeForces in the fvOptions file must be set to true. Then the nodal forces of each combination need to be averaged for each radial position to get the corresponding value in the table.

Developers

wtActuatorFOAM is developed by the Renewable Energy Group at the Computational Simulation Center (CSC-CONICET), Argentina.

Present and past developers:

• Alejandro D. Otero ([email protected])
• Dimas A. Barile ([email protected])
• Sebastián Santisi
• Juan I. Teich
• Gonzalo Navarro Diaz